Falling Skies: Japan
by StephenMcTowelie
Summary: A neurosurgeon and his family struggle to adjust to life following the arrival of alien invaders. A companion story to Falling Skies: Korea set 66 days earlier in the same timeline. Will eventually merge with the story arc of FS: Korea. Features cameo appearances by pre-harnessed Ben Mason. Rated T for language and violence in the later chapters. Chapter 10 complete.
1. Prologue

Prologue

31 July 0830 JST

Tokyo, Japan

For centuries mankind has looked upwards with wonder. There he had found his gods, woven fanciful tales and pondered the deepest mysteries of existence. Long has the human race gazed at the stars, but rarely has he truly paid attention to them. So when six unidentified objects suddenly appeared near Jupiter it barely made the back page of the news. There were more pressing concerns down on Earth to be at the front of people's minds. Facebook, celebrities, sports, gossip, rumours, cliques, politics, career and romantic pursuits and the like dominated the days of most of the developed world. So was it much the same in Tokyo on that day, the day the world was changed forever, and the day we found out with certitude that we are not alone.

Dr. Hideo Kunasagi sat down for a quick breakfast in his small apartment in a high rise in central Tokyo. His 4 children came and went as he made himself a bowl of oatmeal and sat down. The oldest, Tomomi, was by the kitchen counter pouring herself a glass of milk. She was the brainiac of the family, taking after her father. At age 19 she had finished her studies with honors and planned on studying abroad in the fall. She had shoulder length brown hair and dressed very plainly. She was a bit overweight and average at best in the looks department which combined with her introverted, insecure nature didn't give her much luck boys, at least outside the internet. She had a few close friends but rarely hung out with them anymore. Most of her time had been devoted to her studies or spent online. She enjoyed video games, animals and nature, the latter she saw very little of in Tokyo. Sayaka was the middle daughter, at age 17 she was one of the popular girls in her school. She had long black hair and was always dressed to impress. She had a keen eye for fashion along with the vanity to match. Her boyfriend, Kenzou, was also one of the cool kids in her class and together they were the power couple of their clique. When she wasn't hanging out with Kenzou she was often out on the town with her friends, she frequented malls, concert venues and amusement parks. She kept herself quite busy with her social life yet still managed to pull off mediocre grades in her studies. Sayaka came strutting into the kitchen arrayed in a stunning new outfit only to immediately head out the door to meet her friends that were no doubt waiting for her at the train station. Dr. Kusanagi's only son, the 15 year old Michitaro was the jock of the family. He was an avid soccer player and martial arts enthusiast. He was clean cut and built like a rock, though his style of dress was very utilitarian. He often wore sweatpants and T-shirts to school, much to the embarrassment of his older sister. His social circles mainly consisted with his teammates and the hardcore gamer clique. Gaming was something he also shared with Tomomi and the source of much of their bonding when he was younger. He further identified more with Tomomi than Sayaka in his music choices, preferring metal and rock bands to the poppy and punky bands Sayaka enjoyed. Michitaro sat down to a bowl of oatmeal and an egg and hungrily snarfed it down. The youngest child was Yuki who was already at the kitchen table, taking her time with a bowl of cereal. At age 12 she was still a kid at heart. She enjoyed reading, watching TV and adored all manner of cute things. She identified more with Sayaka than any of her other siblings and often tried to tag along with her but typically was denied either by Sayaka or her father. Dr. Kusanagi's wife had died in six months ago in a plane crash leaving the children without a mother and the doctor a widower. He had still refused to date despite Yuki's urgings the past couple of weeks that he should move on and try and be happy again. Instead Dr. Kusanagi focused wholeheartedly on his children and his career as Chief of Neurosurgery at St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo.

Dr. Kusanagi mulled over the mail that had piled up during the past few days as he finished up his breakfast. "Bill, bill, insurance offer, another invitation to speak at a medical conference, hmm." Dr. Kusanagi mumbled as he went through the mundane items. Amongst the pile of envelopes was Tomomi's acceptance letter for one of the colleges she had applied to in the United States. "University of Alabama? Couldn't you have just gone to a nice college around here? There are plenty of fine universities in Tokyo where you can study." Dr. Kusanagi commented. "Oh dad, you know I wanted to get out and see the world. They have a good program in evolutionary biology that I'm interested in. College is supposed to be the time you take risks, try new things, push your horizons you know? I can always come back to boring old Tokyo and pursue post-graduate studies when I'm done." Tomomi replied. "Boring sounds like the perfect description of Alabama to me. If you're going to go to the 'States then why not somewhere cool, like Chicago or UCLA?" Michitaro asked. "I applied there too but I haven't heard back. Those places wouldn't be much of a change from Tokyo I don't think. I want to see nature, like trees, lots of trees out in the wild, not just a city park." Tomomi replied. "Hippie." Michitaro laughed. "Are you sure you're not going there because of a boy?" teased Yuki. "No." Tomomi blushed. "What boy?" asked Dr. Kusanagi. "Some boy she met online. It doesn't matter cause he's never seen what she looks like. She uses a chibi squirrel as her avatar." Yuki answered. "Shut up Yuki! It's nothing dad, she's just messing with me." Tomomi said. "Hmmm." Dr. Kusanagi grumbled. He would discuss this later he thought to himself. Now he had to get going before he was late for work. "All of you behave today. I'll be out late tonight so Tomomi, make sure your sister gets home at a reasonable hour." Dr. Kusanagi said as he straightened out his clothes and headed for the door. "Can't she just take the train like a normal person." complained Tomomi. "You know your sister, she's afraid of creepers at night and you needed the car today to run errands so..." Dr. Kusanagi said before stepping out the door. And so began the start of another ordinary day.


	2. Chapter 1 - Nichijou

Chapter I: Nichijou

31 July 0904 JST

Tokyo, Japan

Tomomi went for her computer soon after her dad had left. "Don't be on there all day. I need to do some stuff on it too." said Michitaro. "I won't be." Tomomi replied sounding a little frustrated. The computer booted up and she went onto her Facebook page and checked if a certain someone was online. "Oh come on, it's only 7 in the evening over there. He should be on." she said hopefully to herself. When she saw the indicator showing he was logged onto his phone she was elated. She completely disregarded the post from "I Fucking Love Science" on her newsfeed that stated "Newly discovered planetoids near Jupiter on a possible collision course with Earth's moon leading astronomer claims." She had only really liked that page to boost her nerdiness level a few points and rarely clicked on anything it said. Alas the person she was looking for was not online at the moment so Tomomi left herself logged in and waited. She watched a couple of random YouTube videos and checked in on her Harry Potter online roleplay group where she was known as "Bellatrix." Also logged onto the group was "Severus Snape" whom in the real world was known as Ben Mason, a shy, bookish kid about 4 or 5 years younger than Tomomi who lived in Boston. The two of them were close friends online and shared an obsession with Harry Potter among other things. He was really shy around girls in particular much in the same way Tomomi was around boys and if not for the supposed anonymity of the internet neither of them would have had the courage to speak to each other. Indeed the two of them were quite alike in that regard and in other ways as well. If only he was older he very well could have been Tomomi's internet crush. If that were the case she would have been applying to colleges such as MIT or Cambridge, where Ben's father was a professor; a fact that certainly wouldn't hurt her chances for acceptance. Nevertheless the stars simply didn't align that way and Ben and Tomomi's relationship had been strictly platonic from the start, and then she met Justin, which was where her affections had been directed ever since. It wasn't long after she logged on that he messaged her over the groups chat server. Then the following conversation flashed onto her screen:

SNAPE: Hey, what's up?

BELLATRIX: Nada, you?

SNAPE: Same. The group's kind of dead tonight I was about to logoff and go to bed until you got on.

BELLATRIX: Bed? It's only 7pm over there.

SNAPE: 8, and Hal's got a game tomorrow, me and Dad were going to go watch.

BELLATRIX: Ah, that's nice you get to spend time with your dad, mines always working.

SNAPE: Well the school year is out and he's got no summer classes to teach so if we don't keep him busy he'll probably go stir crazy.

BELLATRIX: lol, good point.

SNAPE: So how are you and the would be boyfriend? Have you told him yet?

BELLATRIX: Oh staaahp it, Ben. And no, no I haven't.

SNAPE: Well you've got to tell him or someone else might come along and steal him from you.

BELLATRIX: I know, but it's hard.

SNAPE: I feel you there.

SNAPE: Well it looks like I've got to go. My dad needs the computer for some research. Catch you online around the same time tomorrow? I think we'll have our Dumbledore and Ron then too.

BELLATRIX: See you then. Goodnight.

SNAPE: Goodnight.

She then logged off and closed that window on her screen. A few minutes into a video game review on YouTube the alert bell chimed that Justin had logged on. Tomomi wasted no time in messaging him only to regret pouncing so quickly. "I know this must make me seem so desperate, play it cool girl, play it cool." she told herself. This time the messages on her screen showed their real names.

Tomomi: Heyyyyy!

Justin: Hey, how have you been?

Tomomi: Good and you?

Justin: I've been better. We had the crazy uncle from Georgia come visit us today; you know the one that claims to have been abducted by aliens I told you about.

Tomomi: Yeah I remember that. That's some crazy stuff.

Justin: Yeah, he was raving about how the aliens were coming here today and we would all know he was telling the truth. He had a bit to drink so it wasn't exactly worded that well, and he also went on a tangent now and then about boobs and stuff.

Tomomi: LMAO! At least this time we only have to wait till tomorrow to laugh at him, unlike that blood moon thing where we had to wait a whole month.

Justin: True.

Tomomi: Yep. Oh and I have some awesome news!

Justin: What is that?

Tomomi: You and I are going to be going to the same school this year!

Justin: Really?! That's insane.

Tomomi: Yeah I know. I just got the acceptance letter today and my dad gave the go ahead for me to go.

Justin: Wow. Why would you want to come out here to boring old hicksville? I would much rather come over to Tokyo with you and go to school there.

Tomomi: That sounds like something my dad would say lol. Besides Tokyo isn't what anime makes it out to be, you wouldn't find giant robots or Pokémon over here. But no, it'll be fun. We'll actually be able to hang out together and stuff.

Justin: Damn it, but I really wanted to catch 'em all!

Justin: Seriously though, I'm flattered that you would totally reorganize your whole life around just to spend time with me. I really don't know what to say.

Why couldn't she just tell him, Tomomi thought, frustrated with her own inaction. She knew it was weird falling for a guy halfway around the world that she had never seen face to face. A lot of people met online these days, she told herself. She might have gone overboard but now was as good of time as any to take that chance. If he rejected her then at least she could change her school, she thought. That wasn't reassuring in the least. She didn't want to be rejected at all. "Damn it Tomomi, tell the boy!" she muttered to herself. "Well her it goes." she continued.

Tomomi: Well, we've known each other for going almost two years now and I enjoy talking to you online. You're a good friend, and that's saying a lot coming from a girl that doesn't call too many people her friends. It only stands to reason that I'd enjoy spending time with you in person even more so.

"A good friend, really Tomomi, that's the best you can do?" she grumbled.

Justin: Awww, that's sweet. I don't know if you could tell over the time we've known each other but I'll go ahead and confess, that way I don't scare you off when you get here. My feelings for you go a little deeper than just wanting to be friends. As the weeks and months went on and we clicked together I got this crazy idea that you and I should be together, but of course that couldn't work out. We're so far apart and the whole thing just seems a little on the creeper side. You might as well be living on Saturn with my luck. Still, I much prefer your company to the shallow girls my friends try and set me up with. I even turned down a few ladies, ones easy on the eyes to boot, just because in my own twisted little world I thought me and you had a chance. What I'm trying to say is that if you come here, things could go a little further than you might want them to and if you just want to remain friends and not let things get all weird it might not be the best idea for you to come over here just to hang out with me. I've loved you from afar for a while now, there, I said it.

Holy shit, he did the hard part for me! Tomomi gasped, letting Justin's message go unanswered for several minutes. She even started to cry, though they were happy tears. It's not like she was oblivious to his flirtations in the past she just thought they were being cute with each other; that and her obvious hesitation to show her own feelings.

Justin: If that was too much for you I'm sorry. I understand if you don't want to talk right now.

Tomomi was silent in amazement so long that she forgot how much time had elapsed since she had received his message. She just realized that she looked like a total bitch ignoring him for close to twenty minutes when they had been going back and forth almost instantly.

Tomomi: OMG I'm sorry. I wasn't ignoring you, I'm just sooooooo happy! You said the exact thing I've been wanting to say to you forever; maybe not in the same words I would have used but I totally feel the same way about you. It wouldn't matter if I was from Saturn, you and I could still be together.

Justin: Oh thank God I didn't scare you off. I guess you can say we're a unit now?

Tomomi: A unit indeed. Earth and Saturn joined together this day in a dynastic marriage.

"Oh dear god that sounded cheesy." Tomomi said to herself.

Justin: Baby, you're from another planet; one I want to invade.

He's being cheesy too, way to go boy, Tomomi thought. The two of them continued to converse over the internet for several hours until Michitaro reminded her of the other things she had to do today.

Dr. Kusanagi walked in to check on one of his patients that was recovering from surgery. On the TV was one of those morning shows talking about who was dating who in the celebrity world. The topic of conversation switched on the show to a two minute diatribe concerning the "new moons of Jupiter" that were discovered earlier in the day. Quickly enough the topic switched back to traffic reports and tabloid journalism. Dr. Kusanagi paid no mind to the TV; instead he quickly checked his patients chart and made sure everything was going well. "How are you feeling today Mr. Uematsu?" he asked. "Quite well sir." the older gentleman in the bed replied. "By your latest X-rays I see we've removed the entirety of the skull fragment and there's no residual scar tissue. Should be in for a full recovery." Dr. Kusanagi explained. "You're not having any lapses in memory or motor skills are you?" Dr. Kusanagi asked. "No I feel normal. Still can remember all my children's names if that helps." Mr. Uematsu answered. "Good. That's something you don't want to forget." Dr. Kusanagi said. "Got to watch those falls. Don't want to hit your head like that again." Dr. Kusanagi warned. "Well you take it easy for now. I'll be back to check on you again before you're released." the doctor said before leaving the room.

Sayaka met her best friend, Kitsune Tanaka at the mall and they spent much of the day window shopping, gossiping with friends they met and taking a stroll around town. "So when are you meeting up with Kenzou?" asked Kitsune as they were waiting in line for slush drinks in the food court. "I dunno, sometime this evening. We're going to see a movie and then hang out until my lame older sister drags me home." Sayaka replied. "Ah that sucks, probably would want to be out all night with him huh?" Kitsune said. "Well we have to sleep sometime, but we could cuddle up and fall asleep in each other's arms." Sayaka said longingly. "That would be so adorable." Kitsune said. They then ordered their drinks and walked back to a table together making small talk the entire way. Before they could sit down they crossed paths with another one of the "popular" girls in Sayaka's circle of friends, Natsuko. She and her friend Saori, who was more of a hanger-on than anything, were only nominally friends of Sayaka's. It was more of a schoolyard politics kind of thing, been seen with the cool kid, become the cool kid yourself. While Sayaka could be a little prideful at times, Natsuko was full-on full of herself. When the two pairs of girls met, Natsuko intentionally bumped into Kitsune making her spill her drink all over herself. "Bitch, you better watch where you are going." snapped Natsuko. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Kitsune apologized. All the while Sayaka glared at Natsuko, she knew she did it on purpose. "Damn, Sayaka I don't know why you hang out with this loser all the time." Natsuko said. "She's more pleasant to be around than your skanky ass." Sayaka replied. "I know you did not go there." Natsuko laughed, pretending to be playful about it. "Come on, let's not bother them. It's clear they just want to sit there and make out." Saori spoke up, trying to defuse the situation whilst throwing a poor excuse for an insult in Kitsune and Sayaka's direction. "Fine. Laters." Natsuko said. The two girls then went back to whatever it was they were doing before. "I don't know why she has to be mean all the time." Kitsune said as Sayaka handed her handfuls of napkins to clean herself off. "She thinks bringing other people down is the way to build herself up." Sayaka explained. "I pity her, I really do." Sayaka continued. After Kitsune cleaned herself up Sayaka went and bought her another drink and they spent the rest of the day together until Kenzou showed up to take Sayaka to the movies.

That night just before Tomomi was supposed to pick her up, Sayaka and Kenzou were in a park making out on the grass behind a row of small shrubs and an old tree, away from the prying eyes of any passers-by. They were kissing passionately; still deeply entrenched in that moment forever they had just shared. Sayaka and Kenzou broke from their kiss and stared at each other longingly for a moment frozen in time. Kenzou rolled off from on top of her and laid down on his back beside her. Sayaka and Kenzou laid down in the soft grass and looked up at the moon together. "This is wonderful." Sayaka said. "I don't want tonight to ever end." she continued. "It doesn't have to; you'll always have the memory so tonight will always be with you. This won't be the best memory we'll make either; just think we'll pick up where we left off tomorrow and the day after, and the day after that and so on. We have our whole lives to make happy memories together." Kenzou said. "Awwww..." said Sayaka. "That's going to be a long time too. I plan on becoming a crusty old man someday, the crustiest and the oldest." Kenzou joked. "Eww, don't ruin the moment by saying crusty." Sayaka laughed. "Krusty Krab, Krusty Krab, let's eat at the Krusty Krab!" said Kenzou. "Let's not and say we did." Sayaka replied, giggling afterwards.

He saw shadows suddenly appear over the moon as he was daydreaming with Sayaka gazing up at the night sky. There were six of them in total, like smaller moons around the moon. "What's that? Those black spots on the moon?" Kenzou asked. "I dunno baby, Sailor Moon?" Sayaka said cheerfully. "No really, Seriously, I'm not messing with you they just appeared right now. It's like the moon had babies." Kenzou said in astonishment. "Moon babies?" asked Sayaka. Just then Tomomi drove up and honked her horn three times. "Damn it! I've got to go." Sayaka complained. The two of them got up and Sayaka gave Kenzou a quick peck on the lips. "See you tomorrow baby." Sayaka said before she left and got into the car with Tomomi. After she left and Kenzou was all alone he looked up towards the sky again. It was real alright, something new had appeared on or around the moon.


	3. Chapter 2 - Ashita

Chapter II: Ashita

1 Aug 0907 JST

Tokyo, Japan

Dr. Kusanagi woke up late in a panic. He had slept through his first alarm and barely caught the second. It had been another late night at the hospital, they had new patients to see and new residents to train, not to mention the mountains of paperwork that had to be reviewed and signed off on. It was all of the usual and then some. He hastily got dressed, brushed his teeth and combed his hair then into the main room he went. Yuki was in the dining room eating yogurt while in the living room Michitaro turned on the TV only to discover a black screen with the words "No signal" in Hiragana displayed on it. "Dad, the cable's out." Michitaro shouted to him. "Go check the dish outside. If that doesn't work, have Tomomi call the satellite company when she wakes up. I've got to go right now." Dr. Kusanagi called back to him as he gathered up his things and headed for the door.

He went downstairs and into the parking garage for the building to find his car. Dr. Kusanagi, got in, turned on his car and glanced over at his GPS out of habit before he backed out of his space in the parking garage. The GPS displayed "No Signal. Check Antenna." on the screen. "Hmm, just like the TV." Dr. Kusanagi mused, no worries though, it wasn't like he needed it to get to the hospital. He had been going there for over a decade after all. He put his 2013 Honda Accord, a modest car for the Chief of Neurosurgery to have, into drive and headed off towards the hospital, hoping to make it there in time for his meeting with the other department heads.

Later that morning Tomomi woke up and straightaway turned on her computer. After it booted it she attempted to go online and check her Facebook. The page was still loading after several minutes so she tried to load it again. She got the same result so she then went and did her morning routine while the web page was loading. Michitaro hear the sound of her blow dryer after she took a brisk shower and came up and knocked on the door. "Are you up?" he asked. "I'm not presentable yet; don't come in." Tomomi called back. "Dad wanted you to call the satellite company about the TV when you woke up." Michitaro said through the door. "I'll get around to it in a little while." Tomomi replied. She then finished up getting ready and walked over to the computer to see a message from Justin waiting for her.

Justin: Good morning. How was your night? Sweet dreams I hope XD

Tomomi: Yes of course, you were in them.

Tomomi: I'm so sorry I took so long to reply, my computer was being stupid. I wasn't ignoring you I promise.

Justin: It's ok. Been having problems online myself so I just assumed it was that.

Tomomi: So your internet is slow too?

Justin: It's not just ours, but everybody. All my friends have been saying the same thing; the ones in the states, Britain, Japan, and those Warcraft nerds in Korea, all of them have had sloth speed internet today. You can't even access the net on your phone I'd bet. It's on every website I've tried too. I hear it's because someone is hogging all the bandwidth, but to do that on the entire internet is like insane.

Tomomi: Damn, that sucks. I hate waiting like five minutes to get a reply back from you. Hope they get it fixed soon.

Justin: Me too.

Tomomi: Five minutes is still worth the wait XD

Justin: lol yeah.

She remembered that she promised Ben she would be online around this time today too so as she continued to talk and joke around with Justin she started the process of loading a second window. After several minutes she managed to log onto her Harry Potter page. Ben wasn't there and another member of the site had logged off the moment she had got on. Nonetheless she left the window open in case and would occasionally peek back during the time delays between her and Justin's messages. Two hours later Ben appeared online on Facebook but not on the Harry Potter site. With the expected time delay and then some he messaged Tomomi. With all the lag time it was still a long boring wait between responses even with two active conversations going on.

Ben: Hey, sorry I can't log into the site right now. Everyone else is too frustrated with the internets to bother anyways.

Tomomi: That's fine. The internet gods have taken a huge dump on my connection too.

Ben: Yeah, no idea what's going on. Hal's girlfriend thinks it's a cyber-attack from China or something.

Tomomi: Could be, though I don't know why the Chinese would want to clog up the web. Where are they going to get all their bootleg movies and music if their downloads keep freezing up and crashing before they're halfway done.

Ben: lmao! I don't think their government shares the same zeal for arts and entertainment that the people that upload half of what's on pirate bay do.

Tomomi: True.

Ben: Sooooo, did you tell him?

Tomomi: No. :( Actually he told me :D

Ben: No shit! That's unexpected.

Tomomi: Yeah, in a good way though. I don't think I could've ever mustered up the courage on my own.

Ben: You've got to get some self-confidence girl. You're a better person than you give yourself credit for. I know I'm not really one to talk in this regard but still.

Tomomi: Ah, I know. Is that the kind of pep talk your brother gives you?

Ben: Sort of, but he throws in all sorts of lame sports references that go completely under my head.

Tomomi: Don't you mean over your head.

Ben: Nope, I meant under. Point is, they still miss the point.

Tomomi: Oh ok.

Tomomi: but yeah, he's got all the confidence for the both of us. He can be such a sweet talker when he wants to be, albeit in sort of a cheesy way.

Ben: Like the interrupting cheese?

Tomomi: Not that cheesy; maybe more like what the interrupting cheese matures into halfway down the line.

Ben: Ah I see. Well I am happy for you that things are starting to work out for you in that area. I wish I could have some luck with the cute girls in my school this year. I'm starting to have a thing for the fair blonde girls, the radiant elf-haired ones you know?

Tomomi: Taking after your big brother are you? Better watch out or you'll be all "Go 49ers!" next year.

Ben: lmao no, and it's the Patriots up here anyways.

Tomomi: See you do know about American football! Proves my point.

Ben: lol. I'll take the football knowledge if it means getting Hal's charisma with the ladies. It's like they don't even notice me now.

Tomomi: Ah, you're still young. You've got plenty of time for girls to notice you.

Ben: Everyone says that. You know it either seems like you're always too young or too old; at what point are you the right age to fully enjoy life to the fullest?

Tomomi: 24.

Ben: 24?

Tomomi: Yep, 24. Not a day before or after just 24.

Ben: lol, I suppose.

Tomomi: Yeah.

Ben: Well my dad just got back; he wants to take us outside the city so we can see some funny stuff on the moon. Not sure what he's talking about, probably been hanging out with his university buddies in the Science department.

Tomomi: Take care. Talk to you sometime the internet is working better again.

Ben: You too. Goodnight.

Tomomi: Good Morning. Go 49ers!

Ben: Patriots!

Tomomi: Whatever.

Tomomi: Night.

Ben: G'morning. laters.

Ben logged off and Tomomi kept talking to Justin until sleepiness overcame him and he had to go. Now she had the rest of the day to blow with weak internet, no TV, and no real life friends to spend it with. There was always manga she assumed, and video games. Michitaro would be returning from his run soon, a little family game time would help to pass the day

After Dr. Kusanagi had finished up with the morning meeting, having slipped in unnoticed a few minutes into the proceedings, he went on with his usual daily routine. He had caught up on the backlog of administrative tasks before him yesterday so today would be just about the new patients. There were quite a few of them, mostly routine CAT and PET scans, a few concussions, a spinal cord injury and a second opinion on an inoperable brain tumor which Dr. Kusanagi believed could be successfully excised. His reputation had indeed proven true to this patient and her concerned husband. As he delivered the good news to the cancer patient and her husband the TV in their room was tuned into the JNN news network.

The broadcast had just finished a discussion on recent global economic trends. Meanwhile the screen ticker reported "Train derailment in Okayama prefecture leaves 4 dead, 17 injured. US reports massive data breach in Defense Department, National Security agency databases. China, Russia, Great Britain and others also report that their classified defense files have been hacked. Meltdown at Iranian nuclear facility in March leaves lingering concerns over the safety of that country's nuclear program. Former American pop star Miley Cyrus arrested for public intoxication. Contact with International Space Station lost overnight. Syrian civil war continues to escalate, Russia vows intervention if rebels do not agree to ceasefire. French security forces believe they have captured 3 fighters en route to join ISIL in Syria. Chilean mine workers strike causes spike in silver prices. Nintendo rumored to be laying off employees due to poor summer sales figures." The female anchor turned to the male anchor as the segment on the economy concluded and the newsroom took the whole screen again. "Thank you Hideki, for more information about how the falling dollar affects the economy here at home please visit our website. We now go live to our science correspondent Nami Kurosawa reporting from NASA headquarters in Washington DC." the male anchor said.

The screen then split between the Tokyo office and a shot of a female reporter in Washington DC. "Nami, we hear there is a bit of renewed interest in outer space lately. What can you tell us?" the male reporter asked. "That would be something of an understatement to the people here. As you can see it is dark out and all eyes are focused towards the sky. Earlier today it was announced that we may have found confirmation of intelligent extraterrestrial life, on the moon of all places. We go now to an interview conducted by the American news network CNN from earlier today." Ms. Kurosawa said.

The screen completely switched to a NASA roundtable interview recorded during the daytime. "Joining us are Professor Michio Kaku, NASA research engineer Michael C. Goddard and retired Air Force General Bryan Anderson." the host announced. "So it seems the scientific community is awash with these reports of UFO's landing on the moon. Can either of you shed any light on this?" the host asked. "First of all I must say we do not know exactly what these objects area but yes they do exist." stated Goddard. "Here you see the objects as seen through one of the large telescopes on Hawaii's Mauna Kea Observatory. They are black in color, nonreflective and almost perfectly spherical." Goddard continued. "All the hype out there in the scientific community is that these objects are extraterrestrial in origin. Is it possible these planetoids could have just been large asteroids caught by the moon's gravitational pull?" asked the host. "First of all of course they are extraterrestrial in origin, everything in outer space is. What I believe you were indicating is that the buzz is concerning that these objects were constructed by an intelligent race of extraterrestrial beings." stated Professor Kaku "As you can see from watching the moon landing the moon's gravity isn't really that strong. What's more impressive is the change in absolute velocity exhibited by these objects. The fact that these objects stopped when they had been observed just yesterday travelling at 84% of luminal velocity should indicate they are under intelligent control. Whether they are robots or probes or even spaceships, I do believe we are looking at the single greatest event in the history of science: The moment we first encounter evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life. Think of that for a minute; a few decades ago we didn't know if there were other worlds outside the solar system, yesterday we didn't even know if microbes existed on other worlds, and today we are staring right up at a machine sent to us from another world. This changes everything" Professor Kaku explained. "Another thing that is worthy of mention was that something that size, that close to Earth should have a noticeable effect on the tides, yet high and low tides recorded today matched those of the previous weeks with no discernible change and corresponds with what should be expected this time of year. The mass of these external objects is somehow completely negated by observations on the ground." added Goddard. "Any speculation on why that might be the case?" asked the host. "About that, we've theorized that the propulsion mechanism onboard these craft may utilize gravitational or magnetic forces which could potentially explain why we are not having noticeable tidal or geologic effects from their presence." Goddard replied. "The level of sophistication required to do that is beyond anything we can imagine at the present time." Professor Kaku added. "General Anderson, you've been silent the whole time. Anything you can tell us about what the United States and other world governments might do in response to the arrival of aliens on our moon if indeed these are aliens?" asked the host. "I would have to pray that we still have reasonable people in office and the last thing we would want to ever do in this situation is to display any hostile intent. If I was advising the President I would suggest that we do nothing for a few days and see how these objects react. Then perhaps we would start thinking of the most innocuous way to contact or gather data on the objects." General Anderson replied. "I would recommend that we use our existing satellites and telescopes to learn what we can about them in the meantime." advocated Professor Kaku. "About our satellites is it true that they have stopped working since these objects arrived?" asked the host. "Yes. Ever since the objects appeared near the moon all of our satellites, both civilian and military have ceased to function. As Dr. Goddard has said this could also be an after effect of the alien propulsion system so it would be wrongheaded to assume this was a deliberate act on behalf of potential visitors." General Anderson said.

As the TV switched back to their reporter and announced their lifestyle and entertainment segment coming up before cutting to commercial, Dr. Kusanagi had finished discussing the upcoming operation with his patent. He walked out of the room without even noticing the earth shattering news that had been glossed over in the report.


	4. Chapter 3 - Renraku

Chapter III: Renraku

16 Aug 1200 GMT

Lunar Orbit

The shimmering black surface of the craft reflected the image of the tiny probe approaching it. The enigmatic spherical object was massive, visible with the naked eye against the backdrop of the moon. It was a perfect sphere, not an ovoid or spheroid object as were most planets, moons and asteroids. Its surface did not appear solid but rather fluid like obsidian black liquid mercury, with random ripples or waves going across its surface. There was a form to it however. Beyond its general spherical shape the surface was thoroughly cratered with rounded square indentions precisely spaced out the same distance from each other on all sides, much like those on the surface of a golf ball. The craft had no distinguishing features apart from that. The instruments of the internationally sanctioned probe could detect nothing from the object; no heat, no light, no radiation of any kind. It was cold void space to the probe's instruments. As the probed neared closer to the object its systems shut down all at once and its power source, which was driven on radioactive decay and should have lasted for hundreds of years, was completely drained in an instant. With mankind left in the dark, on the side of the object facing the moon triangular shaped craft began to emerge. They pushed through the ethereal black outer skin of the craft and entered into the space beyond it as the fluid like material receded from the shape of the daughter craft. These ships while they themselves were large, between one to five kilometers in length, were microscopic in comparison to the host vessel which they emerged from. Unlike their parent craft these ships were covered in a dull gray metal plating its outside structure. Each despite the differences in length was in the shape of an equilateral triangle approximately 300 feet in depth. The top was smooth and featureless. Tiny flecks of blue light dotted the sides and the undersides were dominated by three enormous circular yellow lights positioned near each tip of the craft with a smaller glowing red circle between them. For now this space armada massed, hidden from human eyes in the shadows cast between the world ships and the moon.

16 Aug 2100 JST

Tokyo, Japan

Tomomi was going through her email after an uneventful day she spent volunteering with her little sister and her friends at the animal shelter. While the cats and dogs were cute, Yuki's obnoxious tween friends were not. In fact they were downright annoying. That was over now and Yuki was staying the night with Izumi, one of the more pretentious brats of that lot. Michitaro was out with friends, Sayaka was with her boyfriend and her dad as always was tied up late at work which left Tomomi happily alone at home to do as he pleased. Most of her online friends in Japan were already in bed or binge gaming and her friends overseas had not yet woken up which left alone online as well. She had some music videos playing on youtube as she sifted through random stuff that people had sent her throughout the day. Amongst her emails Ben had sent her some pictures of his family's fishing trip off of Cape Cod, where he had caught, you guessed it, a cod. How cliché she thought as she moved to the next one. One after another she sorted through the memes and silly stories, commenting back on what she saw appropriate to do so until she saw one message that made her heart skip a beat. Justin was coming to visit her in a week. Apparently he had already procured plane tickets at considerable expense which in and of itself was more than he had to do. He seemed set on making sure that Tomomi was making the right decision in coming to the states for school and was not just acting on the impulse of a blind crush, a fact that showed he really did care about her. He wanted to spend time together to see if they clicked the same in person as they did online. Also he wanted to experience her world first and gain a new appreciation for it before she was thrust into his. Tomomi was taken back by what she read and started to cry tears of joy. She left him a glowing message though he wouldn't get it for a few hours. Until the she just sat back and let the music play, completely taken by the moment. Such had been a wonderful ending to an otherwise dreary day.

17 Aug 0945 JST

Dr. Kusanagi was pulled aside at work by a group of very official looking men in suits. "Dr. Kusanagi I presume?" one of them asked. "Yes, and who are you?" he asked. "We work for the Prime Minister's office." one of them, who appeared to be in charge, answered him back. "If you would please come with us." the man told him. The man flashed his credentials and Dr. Kusanagi took it at face value. He became even more assured when the hospital director came down and told him it was alright to leave. Not sure what the Prime Minister would want with him he followed the men suspiciously. It seemed like the plot of a bad movie when he was taken to an unmarked car and driven to the DIH headquarters where he met with several officials from both the Naicho and the DIH as well as foreign intelligence officials from the US, UK, South Korea, Australia and India. They took him to a room where several other notable scientists, professors, doctors, engineers, mathematicians, philosophers, religious scholars, historians, business leaders, inventors and military officials were gathered. They were all seated around a horseshoe shaped table with a raised stage and podium at the open end. Behind the podium was a large projection screen that was blank at the moment. Dr. Kusanagi sat quietly and waited while there were murmurs and side conversations going on all around him. The room darkened slightly and a hush fell across the room as a man with thick glasses and wiry greying brown hair stepped to the podium. He was dressed sharp in a manner that made him look like a cross between a top secret government agent and a bumbling college professor. "Greetings gentlemen, I am Arthur Pennington of the United Nations Special Commission on Extraterrestrial Affairs." the man spoke in a proper British accent. The office he represented Dr. Kusanagi had never heard of and from the looks of their faces neither did most of the guests in attendance. "It's a newly created office; our charter was established at the beginning of this month. So don't worry all the shadow government conspiracies aren't real." joked Mr. Pennington. "However intelligent alien life is very much real. Perhaps you have seen some of the news coverage that has since died down since six objects entered into orbit around our moon. I've gathered you all together because you are the most brilliant minds in your respective fields. What I've been doing is travelling throughout the various regions of the world seeking insight from its best and brightest concerning these aliens, what they might be like from a biological, psychological and social perspective, how should we approach them, communicate with them, or attempt to interact with them and if necessary defend ourselves against them." Mr. Pennington explained. Dr. Kusanagi hoped that the hospital director had the sense to call his children and let them know he would be home late again, because from the looks of it this was going to be a long day.


	5. Chapter 4 - Fookasu

Chapter IV: Fookasu

17 Aug 1200 JST

Tokyo, Japan

"Three days ago we lost contact with an American probe sent to rendezvous with one of the objects in orbit around our moon." a US intelligence official from an agency Dr. Kusanagi had never heard of announced after taking the podium when Pennington took his leave. He was accompanied by a renowned Indian theoretical physicist and mathematician, a pair of high ranking Naicho officials and a four star U.S. Air Force General. "The telemetry sent by the probe before its loss was inconclusive. Our most sensitive and accurate instruments at close range yielded no further information that ground based observations have provided to this point. Coupled with the observable effects on its surroundings, or lack of, to be more specific, this leads us to believe that this is either some anomaly which defies all the known laws of the natural world or it is a highly advanced form of stealth technology. Dr. Sharma will fill you in on the details." the intelligence official addressed the gathering. A diagram was displayed on a screen behind the podium illustrating what was known and speculated about the object. The official stepped aside and the physicist took the stage. "We believe the reason the object is both undetectable outside the visible spectrum and exerts no gravitational or electromagnetic influence onto its surroundings is that it exists both inside and outside our universe at the same time. The object itself is located apart from the familiar four dimensions of our universe and what we are looking at when we observe the object are quantum effects transmitted through the bulk. For those curious the mathematical proof for such an assumption is displayed on the screen behind me." Dr. Sharma told them.

As Dr. Sharma went more in detail concerning the speculative science around the object Dr. Kusanagi drifted off and wondered what he had to do with any of this. Most of these people, scientists, engineers, military, all of them had something to do with this. Kusanagi was a brilliant man but the stuff they were talking about was foreign to him. They had only a reasonable hypothesis that the objects were indeed the products of an intelligent extraterrestrial race rather than natural phenomena. What was he there to do, examine alien brains when they hadn't even determined there were aliens inside those objects, or that the objects themselves were aliens. Kusanagi felt he was just there, that they were saving him for later just in case they needed him. Now he just had to take time away from his busy work schedule and his family to sit through these boring X-files meetings every week or whenever a new development warranted Naicho agents showing up to snatch him away. He sat back and continued to listen to Dr. Sharma elaborate and expound on various mechanisms by which the object existed and how it could potentially enter or interact with our universe.

After Dr. Sharma stepped down the intelligence official took the podium again. "What's more is that this is not just mere speculation anymore. Observatories around the world have noticed many smaller objects that have broken away from the larger ones and spread out around the earth at the distance of the moon's orbit. We haven't been able to secure any readings beyond visual confirmation on these objects either. NASA and the European Space Agency have launched probes towards two of the smaller objects to study them in detail. With any luck this mission will be more successful than the last. Meanwhile ground based telescopes have given us these images of the new objects." the official stated. Photos of the smaller objects now appeared on the screen behind the podium. They were massive triangular craft with intricately detailed structures on its sides, three hemispherical domes on the bottoms and lights throughout the vessel. Unlike the ambiguous amorphous spheres, these wedge shaped craft were clearly machines, the product of advanced industry. The Air Force General took the podium and went into detail about what was already known about the craft, their dimensions, observed behavior, apparent construction and the locations of each one that had been identified. Over 350 of the ships that had been catalogued so far. The meeting went on for another 2 hours before Kusanagi and the others were dismissed and taken back to where they were picked up from.

There was no doubt anymore, these were visitors from another world. That fact still seemed surreal enough in itself. Most people these days probably assumed that they weren't alone in the universe though these same people also didn't believe they would ever be standing face to face to the proof of that. Kusanagi was no different; he was still in amazement that he would live to see the day in which humanity discovered it was not the lone intelligence throughout the cosmos. Now that the question of what it was floating high above the moon was answered, the question now was what were they doing here and how it would affect people's lives on Earth. The size of the armada that had surrounded the Earth made it appear to be more than a mission of simple scientific inquiry that had brought the aliens to Earth. Kusanagi hoped with foolish optimism that they were here on a mission of mercy to enlighten an arrogant and self-destructive human species. Maybe they came bearing gifts of knowledge that could eradicate hunger, disease, pollution and war. That was the idealist in Kusanagi speaking, the realist in him would believe that the aliens were likely seeking a new home after ravaging their former world by the things that he hoped they had come to relieve mankind of. He feared for his family in such a scenario. Furthermore he feared for his family regardless, once the aliens became less of a speculative curiosity removed far from the realm of day to day life high above the world and presented themselves in a way the world could not ignore many among the human species would be like a frightened, cornered animal staring down something it did not understand. While he expected many of the educated or deeply spiritual people to remain calm in the face of the unknown, many people would strike out, if not towards the aliens then towards their fellow man. Legions more would use the confusion as a front to pursue their own agendas by any means necessary. There were so many diverse factions among humanity, many of which had been at each other's throats for generations. Kusanagi feared that mankind as a whole would not give a very good showing for the visitors and if they themselves did not act in such a way to dispel our fears on the outset of their arrival even if they came with good intentions our response to them could inadvertently trigger a war with the potential for extinguishing all life upon the Earth. Kusanagi tried to put these thoughts out of his mind as he went about the rest of his work day. He did not want to bring home his fears to his family. They were still happy and enjoying their time off from school. They all had their lives, desires and ambitions ahead of them and didn't need to be derailed by some big ominous question mark in the sky. He finished up with his last patient late into the evening and placed the paperwork in its cubbyhole for the office staff to get to in the morning then left for home. With a clear collected composure he hadn't forgotten that the aliens were out there, only he had convinced himself that living his life was more important.


	6. Chapter 5: Shutsugen

Chapter V: Shutsugen

23 Aug 1201 JST

Haneda Airport, Tokyo, Japan

The day had finally come for Tomomi to meet Justin at the airport. She had not only been counting down the days to his arrival but the hours. Though for most of the time she was completely silent about the fact, except with her dad as the day neared ever closer she would go on and on about it at home which drove Sayaka insane.

Tomomi along with her siblings and Sayaka's boyfriend Kenzou gathered together in the baggage claim area for the terminal which Justin was expected to arrive at. Kenzou stood off to the side glancing between Sayaka next to him and whatever randomly piqued his interest around the airport. On the other side of Tomomi Yuki was holding up a cardboard sign with Justin's name on it that was so large it covered up most of her upper body. Tomomi was giddy and overcome with anticipation but also incredibly nervous as she waited in the center of the group. After all Justin had never seen her in person. What if he came all this way and despite what he had told her about not being overly concerned with appearances found her unattractive and wanted nothing to do with her? What if they just didn't hit it off personality wise in the flesh the same way they had online? What if he simply didn't show up? Maybe he had cold feet and stood her up? Even worse what if this whole "relationship" that had built over several years of a long distance friendship that had only now started to blossom into something more was nothing but a sham? What if this was all some cruel prank perpetrated by one of those bitches who teased her incessantly in high school? There were so many things that could wrong but the slight chance that everything could go right was enough to keep Tomomi's spirits high.

"Flight 553 from Los Angeles to Tokyo has arrived." the synthetic voice over the loudspeaker announced thereby signaling Tomomi's wait would soon be over.

"Finally." grumbled Sayaka.

While they had only been waiting here around twenty minutes, not including the time spent taking the train to get here for Sayaka it felt like it had been days on end. While Tomomi was swelling with all sorts of emotion and her other siblings were optimistic and happy for her Sayaka had been getting annoyed the whole time. She really did not want to be here; she started school again tomorrow and wanted to spend her last free day alone with her boyfriend or at least with their mutual and more interesting friends. Nothing was going to drive Sayaka crazy like listening to a couple of dorks swoon over each other the whole train ride home. This airport wasn't agreeing with her either. It felt sterile, like a hospital and with her dad working in one all the time that wasn't exactly a good thing. Still like a good sister Sayaka stood between Tomomi and Kenzou tapping her foot impatiently waiting for this whole boring episode to be over.

"So tell me again why do we have to go with her to pick up her mail order boyfriend? Sayaka sarcastically asked.

"Moral support. Don't be such a meanie. It won't take long." Yuki replied.

"Also someone's got to be here in case this guy turns out to be some psycho serial killer." Michitaro added.

Yuki and Michitaro at first had disapproved of Tomomi starting a long distance relationship with someone who was practically a stranger, though she had known him for years online, they now were somewhat supportive of her. At the very least it made Tomomi a more pleasant person to be around; she wasn't always moping around and depressed half the time like she used to be.

"I don't see why you can't just find a boyfriend down the street. Oh, yes I do because you're a frumpy loser that no one likes. So you have to go on Amazon and order one from ten thousand miles away." Sayaka mocked Tomomi.

"It was Facebook, not Amazon." Tomomi sharply corrected her.

"Whatever." Sayaka shrugged her shoulders and said. "How long does it take to get off a plane?" she complained.

"Come on baby; take it easy on your sister. This is a big day for her." Kenzou politely rebuked his girlfriend.

"Oh alright, I'll be nice just for you. Now watch, he's going to be some ugly ass cave troll and poor little Tomomi will be all heartbroken." Sayaka teased her sister.

"That wasn't very nice." Yuki pointed out.

"I've seen his picture so no he isn't. Not like it would matter anyways. I'm not like you." Tomomi retorted.

"Those can be faked you know. Probably copied it off of someone else's profile or swiped a celebrity pic from somewhere." Sayaka said.

"Heh, he's probably some zit faced pasty balding 400 pound Warcraft nerd who sits at his computer night after night eating hot pockets while wearing nothing but the same dirty underwear he's had on for the past month and a half." Sayaka disdainfully remarked.

"We're about to find out." Yuki said as the first passengers from the plane began to debark into the baggage claim area.

A crowd of people started coming out of the terminal and standing around the conveyor as suitcases and travel bags slid onto it from the unloading chute. As one would expect most of the passengers standing around were Japanese with some exceptions.

"Is he Japanese?" asked Yuki innocently enough peering around the side of her sign to see who was there.

"He's from America genius." Sayaka mocked her.

"So? He could be Japanese from America?" suggested Yuki.

"He's not though." Tomomi told both of them.

"Is that him?" Yuki asked pointing to a grey haired European businessman.

"No! That guy's like sixty years old come on really?" Tomomi said with a halfcocked smile towards Yuki.

"There's your guy right over there. Looks like your type to a T." Sayaka said motioning towards an obese acne ridden Filipino guy in cargo shorts and a blue button down top.

"Ahem no. Let's just wait for him to find us please?" Tomomi told her siblings.

"Excuse me, are you Tomomi?" a deep voiced stranger asked in rather rudimentary Japanese while the 4 siblings were paying attention to each other.

"That's her right here." Sayaka volunteered as they all turned to see who had addressed them.

Sayaka was probably the most shocked when she saw the man standing a couple yards away looking up from Yuki's sign. He wasn't what she assumed to be Tomomi's type at all. He had kind of the 50s Rockabilly type thing going on though it wasn't quite by design. Justin had just tossed on whatever decent looking comfortable clothes he could find on his rushed way out the door en route to the airport back home. Those clothes just happened to be a pair of jeans and a T-shirt with a black leather biker jacket with band patches on it that had doubled as his blanket on the plane. He had well-groomed jet black hair in stark contrast to his mildly tanned fair skin and was clean shaven aside from a modest five o' clock shadow he had acquired on the long plane trip across the ocean. He was a somewhat athletic looking guy, not too thick but definitely not gangly looking. From the looks of it he had well-toned arms and legs for certain though his clothing choices did not serve to highlight his physique though the jeans definitely did accentuate his powerful posterior. Standing just a hair's length under 6 feet he stood out as unusually tall amidst the current airport dwellers, save only Michitaro who was roughly around the same height. Sayaka was taken back by what she had seen. This guy would have been a catch even for her, how Yuki had managed to land him was beyond her. There had to be a catch with this guy, he was either a poor as shit dirt farmer, a total asshole or a complete moron. On looks alone this guy could've shacked up with any of the big boobed blonde bimbos Sayaka assumed to be back in the 'States, he didn't have to travel thousands of miles to find her flat chested, rather uninteresting and visually unappealing sister. Truth was Justin was none of those things; he came from a lower middle class family, was generally regarded as a decent person by those who knew him and had an IQ in the upper end of the bell curve. The one thing he did lack however was confidence and in person he was a trillion times more awkward than behind the safety and relative anonymity of a computer screen.

"Umm, hi. I'm Justin, umm.. . That guy you were supposed to meet right?" he introduced himself, stuttering a bit and blushing with embarrassment over how lame he sounded.

"Hey." Tomomi said blushing, waving and looking away.

"Come on now, don't be shy. Why don't you two get to know each other?" Sayaka said all peppy and excited.

She briskly walked over to Justin, took his arm and walked him back to Tomomi where she stood him next to her. Pleased with herself she clapped her hands together and looked pleasantly at the both of them, mostly Justin, until Kenzou cleared his throat and got her attention.

"There!" Sayaka said to the new couple and went back with Kenzou over by Yuki.

Unlike her sister Tomomi's reaction would have been the same if Justin had turned out to be some bulbous fedora wearing neckbeard. They both just stood there not exactly knowing what to say. They would look at each other and then look away, almost in unison as if they were synchronizing their movements. They did that for at least fifteen minutes before Sayaka interrupted again.

"We should go get your bag, which one is it?" Sayaka asked as she ran over to the conveyor belt.

"That one right up there." Justin said pointing to a used Marine Corps duffel bag.

Sayaka scampered off merrily and attempted to hoist the bag off the conveyor.

"You know you can speak English if it's easier on you. We can all understand you, except maybe Yuki but who cares about her." Sayaka said playfully looking back before bending over to reach for Justin's bag.

"Hey!" said Yuki feigning offense.

"Ugh! What did you put in this thing, rocks? The Rock?" Sayaka asked, grunting as she was unable to lift it.

Michitaro went over and helped Sayaka out. Michitaro grasped the bag with both hands and hefted it up without much difficulty at all. Meanwhile Justin and Tomomi were entranced by each other and finally managed to speak their first word.

"Hi." Tomomi said meekly.

"Hi." replied Justin.

Their focus was interrupted when Michitaro and Sayaka came over with his bag.

"Were you in the Marines?" asked Michitaro noting that while Justin was starting college next year he wasn't the fresh out of high school type, being around 21-22 according to what he could recall Tomomi telling him once before.

"No, that's my cousin's. I thought about it once but by dad thought I would get my ass handed to me there so he talked me out of it." Justin answered.

"That's funny; I can't imagine it being that hard on you." Sayaka remarked. "Do you work out?" she asked.

Kenzou pinched Sayaka in the ribs for her obvious flirting. "Oww." she squeaked and looked back at him.

Michitaro handed him the duffel bag and Justin slung it over his shoulder. "So did you play any sports?" Michitaro asked turning Sayaka's flirtation into an honest inquiry.

"Football up until freshman year. I didn't really take to it though and usually just ended up sitting on the bench. Again, that was my dad pushing something on me. I did boxing and Jiu jitsu on my own though and well, it was enough to placate my old man even though he insisted I wouldn't get a college scholarship that way. A little hard work and some community college covered for that though." Justin replied. He felt more comfortable talking to Michitaro because there was zero love interest there and as such he didn't lock up and become a stammering moron.

"Oh shit, nice. I do MMA myself. Maybe sometime while you're here I can take you down to my gym and introduce you to some of the guys." Michitaro offered.

"Cool, I'd like that." Justin replied.

Tomomi put her arms around Justin's right arm and leaned against him. "He's mine. Don't you be trying to take him Michi." Tomomi said.

Justin laughed "You heard the lady, maybe some other time?" he replied.

It seemed the overt awkwardness had started to wear off though both members of the newly christened couple were inwardly nervous as hell and full of butterflies like they had never experienced before. After about an hour of awkward, stunted conversation the group finally got to leaving the baggage claim area.

"How was your flight?" asked Tomomi.

"It had its moments but it sure as hell was worth it to see you. We changed planes three times, once with a four hour layover in Phoenix. I barely caught my first plane out of Huntsville, running fashionably late as always. It didn't really help that my dad's a regular slave driver. He had me up digging a hole until 1130 the night before I had to hop on the red eye over here. I only had time to shower, throw on a change of clothes and grab my bag before I was out the door." Justin answered

"Digging a hole? What for?" asked Sayaka.

"No idea. Dad wanted a hole dug and well, his roof, his rules is what he tells me. I've still got the rest of the summer before I've got my own place." Justin replied.

Justin took a deep breath, exhaled and smiled "I made it here and am getting to see you, that's all that matters right?" he said happily.

"Awww, I'm glad you feel that way." Tomomi said glowingly.

She pulled him closer to him as they walked along and he did the same in return in some kind of weird sideways hug.

"So how long are you here for?" asked Sayaka.

"12 days." Justin replied.

"That's awesome, and now that I'm out of school we'll actually get a decent amount of time together." Tomomi said.

"Should we go ahead and get all the touristy things out of the way today?" Tomomi asked as they exited the airport terminal and made their way towards the onsite train station

"Come on Tomomi, the guy's been on a plane the better part of two days now. He's probably exhausted." Sayaka said appealing to reason.

"I'd hate to say it but your sister's probably right. I've got some serious jet lag going on here and probably won't be as fun as I should be right out of the gate. We could grab a bite to eat or something and spend a little time together first but I should probably go get checked into my hotel room soon. I won't be gone long; a short nap and I'll be rearing to go before nightfall." Justin confessed.

"You don't have to go to all that trouble to get a hotel room, you can stay with us." Tomomi cheerfully told Justin.

As much as he wanted to spend as much time with her as possible he hesitated, presuming it would be too much of an imposition on her family if he stayed with them.

"You won't be a burden I promise. My dad won't let you sleep in my room I'm sure but we've got a large couch and Yuki's got enough pillows you can borrow to make a pit of gravel feel comfortable." Tomomi said.

"Hey! I need those pillows! Don't go giving away all my pillows!" protested Yuki.

"For what?" asked Michitaro.

"For all my stuffed animals to have pillows and umm, to make a little fort?" bashfully replied Yuki.

Michitaro laughed "You can have the pillows dude. Her stuffed animals aren't going to miss them." he told Justin.

"Please? Just get the money back for the hotel and come with us. Please?" Tomomi begged her newly arrived boyfriend.

"Alright, as long as I won't be a bother." Justin said.

"I'd love the extra company at home but Tomomi think, do you really think dad would be cool with him staying with us for that long?" Sayaka asked sarcastically.

"I already talked to him about it this morning. He didn't mind." Tomomi replied.

"Wow, that is so unlike him. I can't even get him to let me bring Kenzou over for an hour when one of you isn't home." Sayaka remarked.

"Because he knows what you'd do." Tomomi replied eliciting the wide grin of a guilty conscience from Kenzou.

"I resent that accusation!" protested Sayaka.

"Well you know, Dad's been off lately, like something's been weighing heavily on his mind." Sayaka remarked.

Tomomi knew what she meant; their father had indeed been preoccupied with something, something big. Tomomi had seen the changes in his behavior over the past week. At first she thought she was to blame as the change in behavior coincided with the announcement of her wild haired ideas to import some guy from halfway around the world and then go chasing off after him for 4 years while she went to some 3rd rate university when in his eyes she deserved so much more. That was not the case however; her father had assured her of that, he had even stated that if she found happiness this way, in end he might not like the way it came about but he would be proud of her no matter what path she took. There was something else troubling her father. It seemed to be worse when he got off work and especially worse on those long nights that seemed to happen every other day, each time getting longer than the last. Something was going on at his job more than likely. When Tomomi had asked about it he would give some non-answer like "It's been a rough day that's all." or find some other way not to talk about it. He always had a way of shielding them from the worst things in life; like when their mom died, he bore so much of that pain in silence so he could be strong for the children. He couldn't let them see him suffer lest they give into despair. He evaded that feeling of hopelessness ever since because he had lived for them, burying himself in his work in order to avoid facing the facts. He pursued nothing for his own benefit; everything he did was for others, his children, his patients and so on. So to see him this visibly unsettled meant that it wasn't something that just affected him but others as well. Could he have gotten too emotionally attached to a patient? Not likely, he was very good at separating the person from the body, or the brain so to speak. Just what could it be she wondered? For the moment though her father could keep his secrets; Tomomi was too wrapped up in her own joy to really reflect and wonder what her dad was going through.

So the six of them caught the train back to the Kusanagis' building. There Tomomi helped Justin put away his things while oddly enough Sayaka was cooking a meal for all of them.

"I guess we don't have to go out to eat now, if you can stomach it down." Kenzou joked eliciting an elbow to the gut from Sayaka.

He leaned in and kissed Sayaka's neck while she busy preparing her ingredients.

"Could you get me those noodles babe?" Sayaka asked.

Kenzou opened the pantry and took out the ones Sayaka was referring to.

"Man your dad doesn't keep shit for food. It's like a bachelor pad around here." Kenzou commented.

"Tomomi's supposed to do the grocery shopping but someone's been too preoccupied lately." Sayaka remarked.

"Let her have her moment baby." Kenzou said trying to get close to Sayaka again.

While they goofed around in the kitchen Yuki carefully selected which pillows to part with and helped Justin and Tomomi set up his bed. Tomomi then gave Justin a tour of the apartment and went back into the living room and talked until lunch was ready. Sayaka's cooking didn't turn out to be half bad after all. It wasn't great but it was edible and that's saying a lot for someone who rarely if ever cooks her own meals. While they ate Justin got to know Tomomi and her family better. Kenzou kept an eye on Sayaka and subtly yanked the leash on her each time she tried to make a move on Tomomi's man. At least for appearances have some self-control, Kenzou thought. They couldn't speak a word of this to any of the people at school tomorrow, especially those who knew Tomomi. Tomomi could really care less about high school politics; she was out of school and really wanted nothing at all to ruin her week of bliss. She could get back to self-loathing once the feeling wore off a few weeks after Justin went home.

After they had all eaten and gotten to know each other Justin retired to the couch for a nap and Kenzou, Michitaro and Sayaka went into his room to play video games. Meanwhile Tomomi logged on to her Harry Potter fan site to tell her best friend how this apparent milestone in her life had gone. After she private messaged him Ben excused himself from three of their friends reprising the roles of Dumbledore, Draco and Cedric Diggory and went to speak to Tomomi under their Harry Potter names.

SNAPE: I'm surprised to see you here. Was the boyfriend a no show?

BELLATRIX: No he's here. Taking a nap. It was a long plane ride after all.

SNAPE: Nap? shouldn't he just be going to bed?

BELLATRIX: It's only three in the afternoon over here.

SNAPE: Oh, right. Yeah, time difference.

BELLATRIX: What about you? Shouldn't you be in bed?

SNAPE: You know I'm up til the wee hours of the morning that's when all the RP'ers from the UK come on.

BELLATRIX: You and those British folk.

SNAPE: What can I say they have sexy accents lol :P

BELLATRIX: You should do like I did and import one back to the 'states. XD

SNAPE: If only. My dad would flip his lid if I did that. Closest thing I'll get to a real girlfriend is hanging out with Hal's. The new one seems alright. She's nicer to me than he is, most of the time.

BELLATRIX: What was her name again? The platinum blonde girl?

SNAPE: Karen. Not exactly platinum blonde but she is cute.

SNAPE: Enough about me, how did your meeting at the airport today go?

BELLATRIX: It was wonderful. Everything went off without a hitch and Sayaka even stopped being a bitch.

SNAPE: Hee hee that rhymes.

BELLATRIX: LMAO I just realized that. Anyways it went great; I'm hoping he wakes up soon so I can show him around town. With the money he's saving by staying here we could go to Tokyo Disneyland!

SNAPE: That's a real thing? What is it like Hello Kitty Land?

BELLATRIX: No. It's the same as Disneyland just over on this side of the ocean.

SNAPE: Just messing with you. So he's there with you now?

BELLATRIX: Yeah, in the living room.

SNAPE: Then what the heck are you doing on here for?

BELLATRIX: Nap remember?

SNAPE: I don't care if he is napping. You. Go nap with him. Now. I'll talk to you later.

SNAPE: It's not every day that people like us find love. Enjoy it.

And with that Ben closed the chat window and went back to his roleplay. Tomomi logged off the computer and headed back to the living room. Before she could sit down in front of Justin they heard a loud crash outside followed by a cacophony of honking and another crash. Justin sat up quickly as if being jolted from a bad dream as a great commotion arose from outside.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"I don't know. Want to go take a look?" Tomomi replied.

"I'm coming too." Michitaro jumped in as he entered the room.

"And leave the two lovebirds alone? Do you want to be an uncle already?" Tomomi asked.

"They'll be fine. Yuki's watching them." Michitaro replied.

They all laughed and then went out the door.

"We'll be right back!" Tomomi shouted to the others before leaving.

When they reached the ground floor of their building and exited out the front door they saw traffic at a standstill leading to a long line of fender benders. Outside the cars and on the sidewalks a crowd of people were looking up into the sky aghast with fear and wonder.

"Huh? What's this all about?" Michitaro asked.

"Remember the spaceship nonsense that was on the news earlier this month? I think it might have something to do with that." Justin said.

"What makes you say that?" Michitaro asked.

"That." Justin said looking up and pointing to something in the sky.

There in the clear daylight sky was an object in the shape of an equilateral triangle wreathed in the burning heat of atmospheric reentry. It was moving off towards the southwest. Another identical object had already entered the atmosphere and was heading west by slightly northwest. Upon this closer object three large round lights could be observed on the underside. As the objects moved away, in the direction of Shanghai and Seoul according to the ascertations of the crowd, smaller disc shaped objects were birthed from the underside of the triangular objects whose true immensity was not yet realized by the people on the ground. One of these discs hooked around and moved in an arc back towards Tokyo. When it had been disruptions from Jupiter no one cared outside the scientific community and a handful of wackjobs. When it had been spots on the moon it made for intriguing news but no one really knew what to think, and besides a lot of people only get their news through pop culture to begin with and the possibility of alien life or wayward asteroids was interesting in that realm for a whole six days. Now that these clearly artificial craft had broken the veil of the atmosphere the people of Earth could no longer deny the evidence that was in front of them. They were real, they were here and they were among us. It was the 23rd of August 201X. On that day the world was changed forever.


	7. Chapter 6: Kyoufu

Chapter VI: Kyoufu

23 Aug 1630 JST

As the half mile wide disc descended down upon Tokyo from the west the streets filled with crowds of people raising their eyes towards the heavens. People and cars stopped. Those who came out of their vehicles and buildings were joined by those walking and riding bicycles on the sidewalks and streets. The legions of onlookers on the trains stared out at the craft as the train rolled on and those trapped in highrises ran to the windows. Millions of cell phone cameras were pointed skyward to record the incoming silvery disc descending and the massive wedge shaped craft that spawned it retreating westward high above it. While on the approach to Tokyo several hundred smaller craft were launched from ventral and lateral ports opening up in the otherwise smooth structure of the disc shaped vessel. These craft zipped and darted in all directions ahead of and away from all sides of the ship. These smaller craft came in at least three varieties; roughly cigar shaped ships the size of ballistic missile submarines, stealth bomber sized semi-ovoid shaped craft with extended overlapping lateral protrusions which from the underside made the vessel resemble a butterfly as well as smaller more compact versions of the same ship without the noticeable protrusions and a larger, thicker and sturdier looking version. The cigar shaped vessels traveled in a straight line ahead of the main ship while the other craft zipped away in erratic patterns like a swarm of bees. An incoming airliner banked sharply to avoid a midair collision with one of the smaller craft and unintentionally collided with the side of a skyscraper before the pilot could rectify its errant course.

The explosion from the plane crash startled the people in the vicinity of the Kusanagi siblings and Justin. The crash occurred far enough to the northeast so that they themselves would be unaffected should the building collapse but near enough that they could hear the plane slamming into the structure and see the smoke rising into the clear blue sky. The smaller alien vessels zipped overhead silently with little more than a dull hum and the sound of the wind rushing around them to drown out the gasping and gawking of the crowd. Phones and cameras followed the individual ships as they went over and in between the forest of skyscrapers as a contingent of recording devices remained fixed on the burning building in the distance. An encroaching shadow eclipsed the sun over a half mile section of Tokyo as the alien mothership settled into its rest altitude and slowed down to a crawl inching towards the city center. Tomomi clung to Justin as he and Michitaro looked up onto the featureless smooth surface of the alien mothership passing overhead.

"We better get back inside." Michitaro advised the others.

Justin and Tomomi nodded and followed him back up to their unit as the shadow engulfed the street they were standing on. Sirens wailed in the distance as fire crews and first responders rushed to the scene of the burning skyscraper and adjacent structures damaged by fragments of the crashed airliner as they fell from the sky. The three of them ran back inside where Kenzou and Sayaka met them at the door.

"What's going on out there? We just heard an explosion." Kenzou asked.

"Aliens have arrived. A plane freaked out so it crashed into a building." Justin reported as if what had just happened was an everyday occurrence.

"Come again? I think I had something crazy in my ear." Kenzou asked again.

"Remember when I was taking you and Sayaka to that festival last week and I told you about all that stuff on the internet about unknown objects around the moon?" Tomomi asked in return.

"Umm no?" replied Kenzou.

"Well it turns out that the people who were claiming the objects were aliens were right. They've just came down into the atmosphere and at least one of the ships is moving over Tokyo as we speak." Tomomi explained.

"That sounds freaking awesome! I'm gonna go check it out." Kenzou exclaimed.

Michitaro grabbed Kenzou's arm as he went for the door. "I wouldn't if I were you. It's about to get really crazy out there. We should probably stay indoors until the authorities can get the situation under control." he warned him.

Right now the city seemed consumed with awe and wonder at the arrival of these visitors from another star but a strong undercurrent of fear simmered quietly beneath the surface. If one ship buzzed too close it could incite the crowds into a panic. Humans were easily spooked and in large numbers they could be far more dangerous. This was clearly evident in the area around the plane crash where people fled the area screaming and trampling over each other as emergency crews rushed in to save those still trapped inside the building.

23 Aug 1230

Bangalore, India

Elsewhere in the world the arrival of the alien visitors also brought both fear and wonder with them. In southern India crowds gathered in the streets interrupting their midday meals to witness a triangular craft accompanied by a group of disc shaped vessels moving across the sky towards them. The discs shot off in different directions up and out towards other cities making maneuvers that would be otherwise impossible by any human aircraft while the immense triangle soon would blot out the sun over the Bengaluru metropolis. A shopkeeper stood in the doorway to his store looking up while holding his arm over his head to screen off the light from the sun before the alien craft blotted it out. Nearby children playing in the street stopped when the ship's shadow fell upon them. Cars stopped and people gazed in bewilderment as the paradigm in which they had been living in all their lives had just been shattered.

23 Aug 1030 MSK

Kubrinka Air Base, Russian Federation

Fighter pilots scrambled to launch as a titanic triangular craft several kilometers in length closed into the skies over Moscow. The Russian pilots took off and approached the immense alien vessel surrounded by its own cloud of fighter craft. The pilots nervously stared down the ship as the details of its lateral surface became more visible as the jets closed in. Unlike the smooth featureless surfaces of the discs the triangles had a veritable city of towers, ports, domes, spires and extended protrusions within a recessed canyon along the comparatively narrow longitudinal sides. Both steady and blinking lights shone from these structures and the less pronounced features on the top and bottom faces of the triangular mothership. The underside of the ship had three large pale yellow circular lights towards each point of the triangle with a small red light at the center point between the three. Disc shaped craft that had been launched during atmospheric entry broke formation and took off towards Europe and Central Asia. The cloud of alien fighters, drones, transports and gunships also split off and fanned out in groups, one of which was headed straight for the Russian interceptors. The fighters dodged and swerved around alien fighters darting out away from the mothership and maintained their course. A fraction of the alien craft stopped on a dime and spun about on their lateral axes and took up shadowing the fighters from a distance. Fearful, the pilots' instincts told them to take evasive action yet not matter what they did they could not shake the alien craft.

"Keep it steady. Remember do not fire unless fired upon." the squadron leader told his pilots.

The pilots were under strict orders not to engage the aliens lest they inadvertently trigger hostilities from the visitors. The planes were to remain airborne and observe the aliens activity. Elsewhere across Russia the Air Force had been similarly scrambled and took to the skies in case the visitors did happen to turn hostile. It was a delicate game of caution versus provocation which all of the world's military powers would quickly find themselves in.

23 Aug 0835 BST

Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK

Bar patrons lounged about inside a dank, dimly lit pub on the east side of Belfast. The audience was sparse and considerably older than this particular pub saw during its peak business hours. Those in attendance this early on a Sunday were your consummate morning drinkers, the hangers on from the Saturday night routine and those who virtually lived in the pubs. The bored, somewhat drowsy early risers and extreme night owls were thus far unaware of what was happening outside. They simply drank their ale or coffee and ate their bacon and eggs. A small amount of idle chit chat went on between the regulars who all appeared to know each other while a football match from the evening prior was being replayed on the telly.

"We interrupt your regularly scheduled program for breaking news from the BBC World Service." a generic computer generated voice stated as the prerecorded football match they were watching was cut off.

"At 730 GMT this morning a large number of unidentified objects entered the Earth's atmosphere and settled over a number of major cities around the globe." a blonde female reporter stated. "We now go live to our traffic crew in London for further details." she continued.

After the report came on the bar patrons fell silent and became glued to the TV. The screen then changed to display an illuminated triangular craft coming directly down out of the skies at daybreak.

"Here we see one of the craft descending in the skies above London." the reported stated before the shot panned out to show the city skyline from across the Thames with the alien vessel blinking overhead.

23 Aug 0330 EDT

Cambridge, MA, United States

Ben Mason was jolted out of a deep sleep by the sound of supersonic aircraft roaring above his house en route to a disc shaped object closing in on Boston from the harbor. He sat up in his bed, still dangling between dreams and reality and saw flashing blue lights outside. He assumed something was going on with the police; a routine traffic stop or a drunk driver at this hour perhaps. "Nothing to see here." Ben thought as he laid back down and resumed his slumber. Little did he know that when he awoke there would be a large UFO hovering quietly over downtown and the activated Army Reserve and Massachusetts National Guard units would be out in the streets.

23 Aug 2100 JST

Tokyo, Japan

The Kusanagi siblings and Justin gathered around the television as every single station was preempted by emergency broadcasts by government agencies. Outside the situation remained tense the Tokyo Metropolitan Police and the Japanese Self Defense Forces had been called into action to secure the city from possible aggressive action from the aliens and to preemptively contain any civil unrest and widespread panic which might flare up as a result of the alien arrival. In certain districts it had already begun; large numbers of arrests had occurred bringing in looters and hooligans out to live up what they believed to be their last night on Earth. The disruptions were mild so far and there had yet to be any reports of fatalities outside of the area around the damaged skyscraper from earlier in the day. The sound of glass breaking and car alarms going off was sporadic outside as were directives given by police and military officials riding through in patrol cars, armored vans and APCs. The skies buzzed with alien and US military aircraft. All civilian aviation had been grounded or redirected to smaller airfields in regions not quite as populated by extraterrestrial craft. With a nationwide curfew enacted by nightfall Kenzou had to leave to check on his own family before the sun went down leaving Sayaka alone with her siblings and Tomomi's "mail order" boyfriend whom she had taken a superficial liking to herself. Her own devious crush on Justin was the furthest thing from her mind as the news reports continued on the activities of the aliens which now rested over nearly every major city in the world.

"The national and local governments of Japan have so far reacted well to the crisis. Peace and order has been maintained in the capital and most other cities while the Diet considers how to deal with the visitors in conjunction with other nations." one news report stated before Michitaro changed the channel.

"The Tokyo fire has been contained though the structural integrity of ground zero for the blaze and nearby buildings has been called into questions. For safety reasons all persons living in the vicinity of the affected structure who are unable or unwilling to provide alternative lodging have been moved into resettlement centers for the time being." another news report read before Michitaro flipped to the next channel.

"All citizens are urged to remain indoors until further notice." a public service message stated which Michitaro flipped through, they had already heard that at least nine times already.

"The end times are upon us! Look to the heavens and see God's wrath upon us. He is coming soon!" a televangelist preacher declared.

"Go ahead and get that charlatan off of there." Justin remarked urging Michitaro to change the channel. Pseudo-religious hucksters were a dime a dozen back in Alabama and he cared not to listen to one more.

"Military forces in Shanghai have been called in as extraterrestrial craft have appeared over at least 12 cities in mainland China." an unseen foreign affairs reporter stated while the screen showed images of a row of tanks, APCs and mobile anti-aircraft systems moving into Shanghai while the characteristic three lights of an alien mothership loomed in the night sky overhead. The twinkling blue glow of the small alien fighters buzzed about like fireflies darting to and fro around the mothership, the city skyline and beyond. The screen then shifted to a group of civilians hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails at a Chinese APC. In return a stream of gunfire and a couple gas canisters could be seen coming from the APC. "The militarized presence has not been welcomed by all citizens as you see here a group of protesters turned violent when military police demanded they disperse." the reporter continued. Michitaro once again flipped the channel to the next one down.

"Crowds of the faithful gathered around the Vatican, Jerusalem, Varanasi, Mecca and other sacred sites to pray for peace and guidance in the coming days." a female British reporter stated while showing images of these holy cities and throngs of people humbling themselves in prayer. "While most of the worlds' spiritual leaders are emphasizing peace and openness there is at least one preaching a different message in regards to the visitors from above." the reporter went on as the screen shifted to a scene outside a dilapidated mosque near Karachi, Pakistan. "Selim Ibn-Akbar, a radical cleric whom at one time was believed to be linked to the Pakistani Taliban has been preaching an openly hostile message in an effort to incite the visitors to violence." the reporter continued. The screen then changed to a video the cleric had recorded. He was speaking in Urdu with English subtitles on the bottom of the screen. "Allah has sent down his angels to judge the sins of the decadent world. The corruption and wickedness of the West will burn and the Zionist menace shall be expunged from the Earth. I urge the faithful to take up arms and draw down Allah's judgement from the skies." the subtitles read. "Many prominent Muslim clerics as well as the Supreme Leader of Iran have already come out and denounced these statements while other more radical sects including those backing the Islamic State have embraced them." the reporter continued.

Michitaro then switched to another network displaying a news report from US media saying basically the same thing. "Let us not forget we have Christian doomsday preachers saying pretty much the same thing." one commentator said. "I'm getting a lot of "The End is Near" messages but to my knowledge none of them are actually advocating shooting at the aliens." the other commentator rebutted. "You're cherry picking what you want to hear." the first commentator responded prior to Michitaro changing the channel.

"This is all an effort by the global banking cartel to pull the wool over our eyes while they concentrate even more wealth and power into the hands of the elite at the expense of the common man and woman. There are no aliens out there; this is all the work of the corporations. Wake up man!" shouted a man being interviewed by the local equivalent of MTV. Michitaro then continued on through the channels.

"Everything is going to be alien related dude." Justin commented as if he thought Michitaro was looking for something different on TV.

"Four were killed in a riot at a bus station in Buenos Aires today." a report began but Michitaro simply clicked through it.

"Protesters in San Francisco have gathered to demand the US government come clean concerning its involvement with extraterrestrials." a reporter stated as the TV displayed a large group of people chanting and screaming. Parts of the crowd was dressed flamboyantly, others plainly, and others still were dressed up as aliens themselves. There also seemed to be a gay rights rally intermingled in with the UFO disclosure group. Those shown on camera held signs ranging from "The Truth is Out There." to "What Happened at Roswell?" to "I was raped by an alien. We want justice now!" and lastly "Get the Government Out of My Ass" with a picture of a cartoon alien holding a flag in one hand and a probe about to be inserted into a bare butt in the other. Michitaro and Justin snickered as the channel was changed again.

"Reports from Russia indicate that planes flying too close to the alien motherships have unexpectedly lost power and crashed." a report read. "Several nations have been proactive about the risks and have suspended air travel indefinitely." the report continued.

The ongoing news report was interrupted by a live feed from an emergency session of the United Nations where the Secretary General and the President of the United States were about to address the world.

"I assumed that by coming to Japan I would have gotten away from seeing that asshole." remarked Justin to lighten the mood upon the President's appearance.

"As many of you already know by now the great question of whether we are alone in the universe has been answered without a shadow of a doubt. I myself was woken up at around 3 in the morning to be given the news. You can imagine my shock to hear that aliens were landing when I got that call." the President started off by saying before continuing into the more substantive elements of his speech.

As the American President spoke a small bulge on his right upper cheekbone appeared to crawl up his face until the bump in his skin receded down above the corner of his eyebrow. No one appeared to notice except Michitaro.

"Did you see that?" Michitaro asked.

"See what?" Sayaka asked back.

Michitaro rewound the speech and started it up right before the lump on the President's face appeared. "Look right there when he talks." Michitaro told the others before he pressed play.

"Did you see it? The President's skin crawled." Michitaro said after replaying the portion of the speech.

"I think everyone's skin probably crawled a bit because of this." Tomomi remarked.

"I knew he was a vampire!" exclaimed Justin in jest.

Michitaro laughed "Do you think the Americans are going to be the ones negotiating with the aliens? Like will your President be the representative of Earth?" Michitaro asked Justin specifically.

"I sure as hell hope not. With how incompetent that guy has been who knows what kind of stupid space shit he will sign us all up for. I'm not looking forward to being shipped off as a sex slave of Rigel V." Justin joked.

"Honestly I think Earth is too diverse to have just one person represent us to an alien race. We're going to have to assemble a coalition from all societies to speak to them as a group. First we've got to figure out how to speak to them. I read online that when they didn't know these were aliens when they were just stuff in orbit we tried to contact them with all the normal methods but we got nothing back." Justin added.

"Do you think we'll actually get to see one of them tonight?" asked Sayaka.

"Maybe. If they could breathe our atmosphere and they aren't scared of our germs." Justin replied.

"Interesting. I didn't think of that." Sayaka said in a somewhat flirtatious manner. "I suppose they could come out in spacesuits." she continued.

"Dad's still not home yet." Yuki spoke up sounding greatly concerned.

Tomomi turned away from the TV and looked over to her. "He's been out later than this a lot before. I wouldn't worry yourself." she comforted her little sister.

"Didn't the Prime Minister declare a national curfew tonight?" Michitaro mentioned.

"Yeah, he did." Justin acknowledged.

"So dad might not be home until morning." Tomomi turned towards her brother and said.

Justin looked back towards Yuki who clearly was deeply worried. She wished her father was home, she needed him there to feel safe with the unsettling atmosphere that seemed to choke the life out of the apartment.

"Listen, Yuki, he's in a hospital which is one of the safest places to be. Think of it, if anything were to happen to him there are doctors right there to take care of him. So he'll be back safe and sound tomorrow morning I'm sure of it." Justin assured her.

"But I want him back now." Yuki began to cry.

"He's coming back and we'll all be here for you until then. Me, Michitaro and Sayaka we'll all take care of you." Tomomi went over to her and tried to console her.

"But Sayaka can't take care of a hamster! I want my dad!" Yuki cried.

"Hey!" Sayaka protested.

Justin went over to help Tomomi with her sister. Though being a stranger he really couldn't offer much comfort to stave off the fear which caused Yuki to buckle. It was a fear they all were acquainted with. They all were nervous in their own way. No one knew which way the night's events would go; would the aliens be peaceful, would they attack, or would they do nothing and leave the world to dread in uncertainty another day? In addition to fearing for themselves Sayaka worried about Kenzou, his family and her friends. Justin worried about what was going on with his own family and what few friends he had back in the States. They would just be waking up now having likely slept through the visitors' arrival. Though thoroughly exhausted Justin wasn't going to get any sleep tonight, neither would Tomomi or Sayaka. He and Tomomi tried to long strong for Yuki but their own fear was perceptible as was Sayaka's though veiled in the occasional humorous remark. Michitaro seemed to have the strongest composure of all of them but even he was unsettled.

"I think we should turn that off." Justin looked over at Michitaro and said.

"Let's put on something a little lighter for Yuki. We can find out all about the space aliens in the morning." he suggested.

"Or on the internet." Tomomi added.

"That too." Justin agreed.

"Alright I'll look for one of her movies to put on." Sayaka went off to grab one of Yuki's Blu-ray movies. She picked something humorous and cheerful to lighten the mood.

"I hope you don't mind watching something that is super sickeningly girly." Michitaro commented at Justin after seeing what Sayaka had selected.

"If it can get this one's mind off all the scary stuff outside I'll watch anything." Justin replied.

"It's all going to make sense in the morning." Tomomi assured Yuki who was sporadically sobbing and sniffling.

Justin went to get some of Yuki's stuffed animals and her Nintendo DS to further distract her. With any luck her dad would be back in the morning and first contact will have gone off without a hitch. While the cutesy juvenile cartoon show was playing to mask the realities of the outside world from Yuki a growing sense of fear filled the other people in the room. The fear and anxiety they felt was the same the world over. What would happen next could not be known. While armed soldiers could be found in city streets throughout many of the nations of Earth the world deliberated over how to initiate contact. People were divided over how to proceed, whether to initiate contact or to wait for the aliens to make the first move. If they were to send a message what would they say and how would they ensure the message wasn't taken the wrong way? There were so many unknown variables to consider. Ultimately it would have to be the aliens themselves who would be required to complete that contact all we could do was offer them a bridge to cross. They could just as well do nothing which would do little to ease the fears of the world's people. The dreadful uncertainty that the entire world hung on right now was mounting. The human species was like a herd of frightened animals waiting to snap. We were as much a threat to ourselves as the ominous visitors looming in the clouds. As the night wore on and a new day drew closer the world waited to see if their fears would be resolved.

The sounds of jet fighters, helicopters and sirens outside carried on through all hours of night and into the morning. Tokyo simmered but did not boil over as the news reports showed some cities breaking sporadically into various stages of distress and unrest. From the sound of it these tumults would only get worse if the situation wasn't resolved soon. The tension remained among those in the room that the aliens would drop a bomb or release a toxin that would wipe everyone out. They hoped advanced beings capable of bridging the gulf between stars would not be like that yet still the possibility remained. Eventually Yuki would drift off into sleep before Michitaro carried her off to her room and tucked her in. For the other Kusanagi siblings and their guest there would be no rest, for the night was long and full of terrors.


	8. Chapter 7: Yoake

Chapter VII: Yoake

24 Aug 0821 JST

Tokyo, Japan

Sunlight beamed through the cracks in the living room blinds in the Kusanagi's home the morning following the aliens' arrival. Yuki slept curled up in a fetal position on the end of the couch with her head and shoulders underneath Tomomi's left arm. Tomomi leaned into Justin who was sleeping in a seated position to her right. She rested her head on his shoulder and clung onto his firm muscular left arm. Sayaka slept on the other side of the couch with her feet dangling over the edge and her head resting peacefully in Justin's lap. The four of them looked like a group of cats huddling together for warmth though warmth was hardly the thing they needed on a warm late summer's night. Michitaro was the only one to have spent the night unencumbered, alone and cool reclined on the chair placed perpendicular to the couch. This also put him directly in the path of the sunbeams sneaking past the blinds. The sun's rays warmed his body and as they flickered over his eyelids they disturbed his slumber enough to rouse him back to consciousness. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. He was surprised to see it was this late in the morning already. He felt as if he had just closed his eyes a minute ago when the clock read 03:54 AM and now it was already half past 8. He looked over at his sisters all jumbled together in a single blob on the couch then reached underneath his butt where his phone had slipped from his hands and worked its way to after he had dozed off. With a little bit of squirming he pulled out his phone, checked it to make sure it still worked, ignored the 40-something messages and photos his friends had sent him during the four short hours he was asleep and snapped a picture of his sisters all snuggled up. Tomomi would probably be sentimental enough to want something to remember this moment by he thought as he saved the photo and stood up.

The very next thing Michitaro did was to run to his bedroom window and peek outside. On the off chance that the fantastical events of yesterday had been a dream he expected to look out the window and see a clear sky behind the Tokyo skyline with no evidence of aliens whatsoever. When he pulled aside the curtains his speculative presumption was dashed. The disc shaped alien mothership loomed quietly over a half mile section of Tokyo to the northeast. A few dozen small alien fighters zipped around it, periodically coming and going to parts unspecified and unseen. On the streets below the citizens of Tokyo were back outside doing their daily business only with armored vehicles in the streets. Police officers and soldiers were out directing traffic and keeping the peace as people were most certainly on edge. The militarized presence didn't seem to bother people; some stopped and stared or took pictures but mostly the people went about their business more nervous about the great big unknown in the sky than the men with guns on the ground. All in all the city was alive once again. The loud roar of helicopter blades thundered over the background noise as two UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters bearing the markings of the JSDF passed overhead.

"Well, it really happened." Michitaro remarked quietly to himself as he headed back into the living room.

The soft sound of his steps woke Justin whose movements woke Tomomi who by sitting up woke Yuki, sort of until she leaned the opposite way on the couch and went back to bed. Tomomi then shook Sayaka gently to wake her up.

"Sayaka, Sayaka, wake up." she said. "I need you to get your head off of my boyfriend's crotch." Tomomi jokingly chastised her sleeping sister.

"Ok, ok, leave me alone. I'm tired." Sayaka grumbled, rolling over in Justin's lap but keeping her head upon it.

She took out her phone and looked at the time. "Oh crap! I am so late for school!" Sayaka panicked, abruptly getting up and making a staggered dash to her room.

"I'd imagine school's been cancelled." Michitaro casually told her.

"But what if it isn't?" Sayaka said peeking back out of her room.

Michitaro let Sayaka worry herself and rush to take a shower, primp and prepare herself for the school day before he showed her the message on the school's website on his smartphone showing that they were closed until further noticed due to "unexplained circumstances." Michitaro laughed when Sayaka scowled at him.

"You made me go through all that freaking out for nothing!?" Sayaka fumed.

"Yeah." laughed Michitaro. "The look on your face was priceless." he continued.

"Come over to the window and take a look outside. There's not a whole lot of anything that's getting done today." Michitaro said and then went with Sayaka to look at the spacecraft still in position over Tokyo.

Meanwhile Tomomi and Justin cuddled together on the couch until Michitaro and Sayaka returned and Yuki actually woke up.

"Is dad home now?" Yuki asked.

It just occurred to Yuki's siblings that in all that time none of them had yet realized that their dad had not come home from work.

"Not yet, but it's a mess outside. They probably just started letting people out into the streets again. The traffic looks terrible and you know the trains are going to be packed. He'll probably show up in a couple hours." Michitaro reassured Yuki.

Truth was that Michitaro didn't know when or if his father would come home. There was a small amount of tumult in Tokyo from what he had heard though none of it was too close to their home or the hospital where their father worked. However there could have been a rash of injuries resulting from the night's chaos in those places which could have pulled their father down to the ER to assist the staff there. He might have been a brain surgeon but he was still a doctor after all. Their dad could be sleeping off a long and unexpected night shift right now.

"I'm sure dad's alright." Sayaka added.

"It didn't sound that bad last night so yeah everything's probably ok with your dad. Pretty peaceful for aliens popping out of the sky if you ask me." Justin added his two cents worth.

"From what I'm reading the only places that totally lost their shit yesterday were mostly a few cities in China, big shock, Iran, another big shock, a couple cities in France, a little bit in the Ukraine but not that bad, a bunch of Middle Eastern and African countries that were already going to shit before the aliens came so you can't really blame ET for that, oh and it says some military jets went down over India, doesn't say why, apparently some people got run over by a tank in Greece and there was mass panic in Bogota, Caracas, Havana, some place in Brazil that I can't pronounce, Detroit and Los Angeles." Michitaro read the summation of the news reports on his phone.

"Well the world we knew did just kind of change on a dime. You kind of expect it to get a little out of control when something like that happens." Tomomi remarked.

"You can probably excuse those places in the Western hemisphere somewhat. People must have woken up and saw aliens outside and soldiers in their streets and assumed that Armageddon had struck. As for those assholes in China, that was just the military being dicks to people." Michitaro remarked.

"You can just never cut the Chinese any slack can you?" Sayaka asked.

"Their people yeah, there's a lot of good people over in China, it's just their government is full of a bunch of big swinging dicks." Michitaro replied.

"You sure do get your politics from dad don't you?" sighed Sayaka.

"Thank God it wasn't like that here. I wonder how people back home are taking this." mentioned Justin, changing the subject away from Michitaro's nationalist tirade of which he knew little to nothing about.

After hearing a couple cities in the US were on Michitaro's list it made him a little bit worried. Granted his family lived a short drive outside of town and Huntsville really wasn't a big city to begin with there probably wouldn't be the herds of people caught off guard. Maybe they had him dig that hole so they could pour concrete and build an underground bunker to hide in, or a deep grave to be buried in.

"Did you try calling them?" Sayaka asked.

"I would if I could. My battery's dead and I left my charger in the airport when I made the transfer in LAX." Justin replied.

"What kind of phone is it? I might have a charger from one of my old phones you can use." Sayaka offered.

"Well I know one way to check on things around the world. Come with me." Tomomi suggested.

Tomomi led Justin into her bedroom and got onto the computer. Sayaka, Michitaro and Yuki followed her and sat down on the bed behind the two of them. She pulled up a website showing a map the locations of all reported alien craft. Justin leaned in on Tomomi's right side to watch what she was doing.

"It's Huntsville Alabama right?" Tomomi asked while typing in the information.

"Yeah around there." Justin replied.

"It's not showing anything going on there. Nearest one is in Chattanooga which is 100 miles away." Tomomi said.

"There's a big one over there in Atlanta it looks like." Justin mumbled making note of the figures on the screen.

"I'm going to see if any of my friends from the 'States are saying anything about what's happening there." Tomomi told Justin.

She then went to her Facebook page and logged on. Sayaka leaned in to be nosy on the other side of Tomomi's head, briefly looking over at Justin and smiling before looking back at Tomomi's page.

"362 friends? How did you get 362 friends?" Sayaka asked.

"Don't get jealous; Facebook friends aren't real friends." Michitaro said to his sister.

"Oh I'm not jealous. I've got over a thousand on mine. I'm just surprised she has anything in common with that many people, even on the internet." Sayaka said.

Tomomi simply ignored Sayaka ridiculing her as always and scrolled down to her feed.

The first thing posted on Tomomi's Facebook was a picture of one of the titanic triangular ships overshadowing the skyline of Seoul, South Korea.

The caption above the picture read "Ben Mason, Kenzou Tsurumaki and 11 others commented on this" and below that stated "Park Hye-jin shared a photo." Tomomi clicked on the picture and read through some of the comments.

Ben Mason: Wow! That thing is huge! It's even bigger than the one we have in Boston.

Hong Tien: We don't even have one in Phan Thiet

Lee Han-jae: That red light is right over my building. Freaked the fuck out of my mom all last night. She thought they were going to start shooting laser beams out of it.

Jeremy Jung: How do you suppose they keep that thing up there like that?

Lee Han-jae: They don't make any noise so who knows.

Lee Han-jae: My guess is something to do with magnetism or magic anti-gravity generators.

Jeremy Jung: Magnets are magic.

Lee Han-jae: lol magic.

Soo Eun-mi: Remember we didn't even notice they were there for like two hours.

Park Hye-jin: Eun-mi, yeah we were off in our own little world.

Kenzou Tsurumaki: Why the fuck does Korea get a huge ass spaceship and we just get a lame ass flying saucer?

Jeremy Jung: The aliens just don't know where it's at bro.

Kenzou Tsurumaki: Word.

"Why is my boyfriend on your Facebook?" Sayaka questioned Tomomi after seeing Kenzou's name there.

"We're friends, is that ok?" Tomomi asked.

"No. You don't understand what that does to my image at school. My friends are friends with Kenzou too and well, let's see you being associated with Kenzou makes him look like a loser and that trickles down to my dating life. Having you associated with my dating life makes me look like a total loser." Sayaka told her.

"Listen, I love you like a sister but there's a difference between my private life and my public face you understand?" Sayaka explained.

"He added me. It would be rude for me just to up and ditch him like that. You're going to have to go talk to him if those are the rules you two play by. I don't care one way or the other." Tomomi replied.

"Fine. If you're going to add Kenzou then I get to add him." Sayaka pouted and pointed to Justin.

Justin held a surprised expression with a look that said "I have nothing to do with this, please keep me out of your sisterly squabbles."

"Go ahead. I don't care." Tomomi replied.

She wasn't particularly jealous or possessive with Justin so it honestly didn't matter who he was friends with. She knew exactly where his heart lies. He could be friends with Sayaka or any of her friends, provided he could stand their vapid shallow personalities. They couldn't say or do anything that would change the way he saw Tomomi. Though they had just met in person they had several years in which they had connected from afar.

"We should go look for you that phone charger huh?" Sayaka asked Justin and led him away by the hand into her room.

Michitaro excused himself as well and went to make a quick breakfast for him and Yuki.

While Sayaka rummaged through her things and made idle conversation with Justin Tomomi clicked back out of the comments and back onto her main page. She checked the list of her online friends to see if anyone familiar was there. Of course for any news on things in the US Ben was the first person she thought of. As fate would have it Ben was offline, go figure. It was around 9 PM in Massachusetts right now so he was probably outside watching the light show the aliens were providing instead of dinking around online. She scrolled down and looked at all the various posts on her feed. Nearly all of them were pictures of spaceships or people posing in front of spaceships. Kenzou had a picture up where it looked like his hand was holding the Tokyo mothership. It didn't take long for the internet to develop fresh memes concerning the aliens as well as resurrecting the all too common "Ayy lmao" meme. There were also posts and news stories concerning the ships and human related disturbances on the ground. It seemed that a few cities had some major problems with a fearful population run amok. Los Angeles, always a popular target for destruction in disaster movies had experienced a night of fear and violence as hundreds of thousands of people attempted to flee to the hills when their own gigantic mothership had descended on their city. From the comments below the story it seemed as if the National Guard had stepped in and the city had a lid on things for the moment. While she was looking through pictures and posts Hannah Troung, one of Tomomi's friends had seen that Tomomi was online and messaged her.

Hannah: Hi.

Tomomi: Hey, what's up?

Hannah: Just looking through all the mess on here to see how the world has changed.

Tomomi: It doesn't feel like it changed much here.

Hannah: Same. Down south I hear they had a huge scare though.

Tomomi: Yeah, I was just reading about that. How are things in the Bay Area?

Hannah: They sent the army in and that pissed a bunch of people off. That's San Francisco, big surprise there. Personally I'd rather have the troops here because our cops are incompetent and if the aliens land things are going to get really crazy, really fast.

Tomomi: The army came out here too. People don't seem to mind though. Considering all that's happened it's actually pretty quiet.

Hannah: Kind of makes you wonder if it's all real doesn't it? Oh and there's a bunch of weird cultists going around talking about "Space Brothers" and how we've got to do this and that and love the Earth so that the galactic community will respect us. They've got some decent points but the way they go about doing it is freaking hilarious.

Tomomi: Old burnt out hippies?

Hannah: Pretty much, but there's plenty of young douchey hipsters in that mix too.

Tomomi: LOL. I didn't think hipsters and hippies mixed well.

Just then Sayaka and Justin came back with the phone cord for Justin's phone. Sayaka was giggling and smiling from a joke that Justin had just said. Seeing them come back into the room Tomomi wrapped up her conversation with Hannah and excused herself from her online chat.

Tomomi: Oh, did I tell you my boyfriend came over yesterday?

Hannah: You have a boyfriend? Good for you girl!

Hannah: tbh I thought you were a lesbian and were just holding out on me.

Tomomi: Nah, just never met the right guy until now. If I was a lesbian you would be the first girl I look up Hannah.

Hannah: Awww, that's sweet. Don't get me tempted for what I can't have.

Tomomi: I won't. Speaking of my boyfriend I should be getting back to him.

Hannah: Go right ahead girl. I really should be getting to sleep but there's like so much going on its crazy.

Tomomi: Take care.

Hannah: You too. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.

Tomomi: Which is?

Hannah: Good point.

Hannah: Laters girl.

Tomomi: Bye.

Tomomi then got up as Justin was plugging in his phone into her wall outlet. Before she and Justin could exchange a single word Michitaro came into the room.

"Breakfast is ready if you want some. Oh, and we're out of toilet paper. I just used the last of it." Michitaro remarked as he came back from the restroom.

"If only you didn't have such a big ass." Sayaka playfully chided him.

"Hey, this ass is pure muscle." Michitaro rebutted.

"Watch your language around Yuki please." Tomomi scolded the two of them.

"Yes mother." Sayaka sarcastically replied with Michitaro snickering in the background.

"Looks like you should probably go get us some toilet paper then." Sayaka told Tomomi.

"Ok, I'll head to the store and get some. Is there anything else we need?" Tomomi asked all of them.

"Not that I know of." Michitaro replied.

"Marshmallows." Yuki added.

"I guess that's one way for you to get out and see Tokyo." Tomomi cheerfully told Justin.

"That it is. How about you show me around?" Justin replied with a smile.

"I'll come with." said Sayaka.

"I thought you didn't want to come?" Tomomi asked.

"I didn't but well, I thought we could swing by Kenzou's place and see how he was doing." Sayaka answered.

"Just make sure to bring back the TP in a reasonable amount of time. If you hold them up so long with your boyfriend and I have to go again I'm using one of your magazines to wipe with." Michitaro told Sayaka.

"Ewwww." remarked Yuki.

"Aren't you going to go?" Tomomi asked Michitaro.

"No I'll stay here with Yuki. Someone has to be here in case dad comes back." Michitaro volunteered.

When the older sisters left out the front door Michitaro turned on the TV which as all the channels were doing since the aliens came down was broadcasting nonstop news updates.

"Egyptian authorities have arrested a group of men conspiring to shoot down an alien spacecraft near Cairo." the update stated before Michitaro switched off the input to the TV.

He then set up the PlayStation so that he and Yuki could play games while they waited for their sisters to get back.

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 _ **Author's Note:** Just to address a question that is likely to come up in the next few chapters. **Why are the aliens sitting up there waiting around? Why don't they attack right out of the gate?** The reason for this initially was because in the series there was a scene when the 2nd Mass first took up residence in the school that showed a newspaper clipping with the headline "XX days without contact" give or take a few so that's what I based the timetables for the invasion off of. Note that I fudged the numbers slightly and started the clock from when the aliens were detected around Jupiter not when they came to Earth. I'm not really sure why I am so wedded to this one little thing when I have no problem scrapping entire canon elements for the purposes of my remake stories (i.e. all of Seasons 4 and 5) but for better or for worse that's the way I'm going with it. After working through these stories awhile that "delay" will be shown to have actually served a purpose - some of which will be hinted at or outright disclosed in the upcoming chapters. This story will be unique among the others as it will show what happens in those intervening days when we don't know if they come in peace or not whereas the others begin on the onset of the attack or some time thereafter. As such there will be things explored in greater depth in the upcoming chapters that were only briefly mentioned in the other stories. Seeing also as this is the only one of the stories to explore the time frame between the discovery of the aliens and the attack there will be a number of cameo scenes to give a glimpse into what that time period was like for the main cast of Falling Skies back in the States, primarily as it is seen through Ben's POV. Furthermore the presentation of the opening salvo of the attack and the initial invasion will be presented differently here, so it will not simply be a rehash of what I've already done. Each story in my FS remake is going to be different even though they're recounting the same events. Not that any of this that I have just given would be a spoiler or anything considering that the date "the bomb drops" is already given in the first chapter (the second if you count the prologue) of Falling Skies: Korea. (If you don't want that spoiled and you haven't already read that story I'd suggest waiting until I catch up before starting either FS: Korea or The Boston Massacre.) I will be pushing this story fairly quickly to catch it up to the start point of FS: Korea over the next several weeks so with any luck I won't be dropping a cliffhanger until after the attack hits. Beyond that eventually both stories will merge together approximately 3-4 months after the ground invasion begins. (I'm only about a month in on FS: Korea right now so there is still a long way to go in both stories before they merge together so yeah, there will be a lot more coming in due time.) This one should advance faster from that point since it deals primarily with one group of survivors so it's reasonable to assume that I can time the merger point to where both stories reach that stage at the same time. Thank you to everyone who is still reading my stuff. Your continued interest is greatly appreciated; It keeps me motivated to continue on with what is shaping out to be a very long and interesting project. Cheers! :)_


	9. Chapter 8: Paradaimu Shifuto

Chapter VIII: Paradaimu Shifuto

24 Aug 1010 JST

Tokyo, Japan

An air of uneasiness filled the streets of Tokyo as Tomomi, her sister and her boyfriend went from their home to a store down the street to pick up some toilet paper and marshmallows. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. The usual casual conversation between pedestrians and the chatter on their phones was replaced by dead silence. There were fewer people outside than usual and those people out on the streets walked with a purpose. They did not stop to pay any mind to anything beyond where they were going. The Kusanagi sisters could tell they were scared and nervous, as were they deep down. Many stores, restaurants, gift shops and boutiques that normally should have been open were closed. There were more cops in this upscale, well to do part of Tokyo than Tomomi had seen in her entire life. The passage of cars through the streets was at a slow trickle as military vehicles and JSDF soldiers were spaced out over dozens of city blocks. Buses, both in the employ of government agencies and the city waited on standby inside the army's barricades should an evacuation order be given. Overhead alien fighters buzzed the tops of the skyscrapers and performed incredible maneuvers as they zipped across the sky. The three of them passed by a bus where the driver was watching an onboard television screen broadcasting one of those news/entertainment morning shows while being queued up for a potential evacuation.

"It's the 24th of August and all anyone is talking about around the world is aliens, aliens, aliens." A male host said in a ridiculously cheesy opening. Try as it might this program could never pass for real news.

"Understandably so Ren. It has been less than twenty four hours since the first ships came out of the sky and almost simultaneous took up positions over every single city of note on Earth." his female co-host replied.

"Since they've shown up people have seen these ships doing some pretty bizarre and impressive things." she continued.

"A viewer has sent in this footage of one of the ships dropping something into the ocean." she went on as the screen changed to show a disc shaped object dropping fuzzy red spheres into the ocean from the vantage point of a fishing ship somewhere in the North Pacific.

"This UFO has just become a USO." joked the male host.

Tomomi, Justin and Sayaka walked on past the bus, disregarding the show entirely. They reached the closest store to them to find it closed and chained up.

"Well that's sure nice of them." Justin remarked.

"Come on, there's a big chain grocery store just a few more blocks down and around that way." Tomomi led them on.

Turning around the corner on the opposite side of the street from the police directing traffic were a row of parked cabs waiting for their services to be needed. The cabs all had their radios on, and in between a handful of which that were playing music the others all were tuned into the same station which seemed to be a business news channel of sorts.

"It's a veritable alien apocalypse on Wall Street. Markets in New York and London closed hours after opening in response to a mass selloff by shareholders attempted to rapidly liquidate their investments. The New York and London stock exchanges both saw a marked decline within minutes of the opening bell. It is estimated that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would have declined by 92% over the course of the trading day if the decision to suspend all activity had not been made. Fearing the same result would happen here the Tokyo Stock Exchange declined to open today and is suspending all further transactions indefinitely." a report coming from one of the taxis stated.

The contents of the report faded away as a folksy tune drowned it out coming from the next cab but when the trio got a couple more cars down they heard it again.

"In response to the impending financial crisis the government of Germany declared a week long banking holiday to allow for cooler heads to prevail. At the urging of some of its more prominent members the National Diet meets later today to consider the same strategy here in Japan." the reporter continued, fading in and out as Tomomi and company passed by.

"Concerns over economic and personal security haven't just affected people since the arrival of the extraterrestrial craft; entire nations have begun calling in their debts with each other the most notable being China's enormous holdings of US backed debt. When asked about the United States' ability to pay such an exorbitant sum the American President had this to say." the reporter picked up again when they passed near another taxi with the driver asleep in his seat.

"Let me assure the Chinese people and their government that we intend to make good on our promises. However such a hasty move on their part would be disastrous for the world economy and only lead to increased panic and instability around the globe. I am calling on the Chinese leadership to meet with me here in Washington within the week to discuss terms for a structured solution that is amenable for all parties involved." the US President stated over the radio.

"It is believed that the Chinese were seeking the funds in order to support intensive research efforts and to "alien-proof" their infrastructure." the reporter came back on and stated.

"Alien proof? That sounds kind of crazy if you ask me." a guest commentator spoke up as they approached the last of the line of taxi cabs.

"It sure does Daisuke." the lead reporter took over.

"On that note Japan currently has no intention of calling in its debts with the US or any other country." the report continued and eventually faded into obscurity as Tomomi and the others walked away.

When they got to the store there was a thick crowd gathered around outside all waiting for a chance to get in. A couple of police officers and a half dozen store employees guarded the front entrance and admitted new people as groups of shoppers exited. Additional employees were also posted inside the doors making sure that all merchandise was bought and paid for and tried to persuade shoppers coming in to share the available products with other customers.

"Listen up people. Due to limited supply no more than two of any particular item can be purchased by any one customer today. Please remember, no more than two of any item. And please no more than one cart per person." the store owner addressed the crowd over the policeman's bullhorn.

While waiting in line to get into the store they saw the customers coming out trading goods with each other or selling off stuff they didn't need. Everyone that went in brought back the maximum they were allowed even if they didn't need the majority of items they purchased. They could exchange with others who might have gotten the last one of what they were looking for or they could sell their surplus, often at a ridiculously inflated value to others who were in dire need.

"Excuse me. Do you know if they have toilet paper in there?" Tomomi asked one of the customers as she was leaving the store.

"I'm sorry, but they are fresh out. It's very bare bones in there; I don't see how all these people are going to get anything let alone what they need." the shopper answered.

"What are we doing waiting around for?" complained a man standing nearby.

"Are you expecting a new shipment today?" a customer shouted over the crowd to ask the store owner.

"Our shipments come in at 5 AM and we aren't expecting another one until tomorrow. We've called our supplier but unfortunately they are unable to accommodate our demands any further until then." the store owner diplomatically responded.

"Well there goes that idea." Tomomi said shrugging her shoulders.

"There's another store if we keep going north. I guess it's worth a shot." she told the others.

"It'll probably be the same story as this place. How about we take the train into Shinjuku, there's bound to be more there to go around." suggested Sayaka.

Of course she only suggested this because she knew that Kenzou had headed that way with some of his friends to get a closer view of the spacecraft. She discovered that fact when she was texting back and forth with him intending on initially dropping by his house of which he informed her he wouldn't be back until sometime in the late afternoon.

"Well we do get to see more of Tokyo that way." said Justin, being positive about their predicament.

"True. Let's get to it then before Michitaro has to use Sayaka's magazines to wipe with." Tomomi said.

So they took the train, caught a bit of sightseeing, both of the earthly and the extraterrestrial variety and hopped around various stores looking for what should have been a simple item to find. It was the same everywhere they went. The stores were out of basic necessities. Out of thirteen stores they had visited today all of them were completely sold out.

"Well we did manage to find marshmallows." Justin commented as he stuffed a handful of them into his mouth.

"Those are supposed to be for Yuki." Tomomi scolded him.

"Yeah, right, umm, my bad." Justin apologized to laughter from all three.

"So where to next?" Sayaka said.

Kenzou, being his characteristically inconsiderate self didn't wait up for Sayaka and had already gone back home by the time they were to rendezvous with him. As such she too was ready to head back home though now she had to wait on Tomomi and Justin.

"I guess we're going to have to resort to buying from the scalpers outside." Justin conceded.

Sure enough they managed to find a guy selling toilet paper, batteries and toothpaste out of the back of a small van. The man looked about as sleazy as they come wearing a yellow suede suit with a checkerboard tie along with lightly soiled khaki pants over a pair of brown loafers. His hair was oiled up in an elongated comb over to cover his bald spot which was essentially the entire top of his head. Seeing potential customers the man spread out his gangly arms in delight to bid them to inspect his wares.

"See anything you like?" the man asked.

"I'll just have one of those packs of toilet paper." Tomomi told him.

"Which one? Take your pick, 600 yen a piece." the man said.

"600 yen for a four pack of toilet paper? That's highway robbery!" Sayaka protested.

"We don't really have much of a choice." Tomomi said as she opened up her purse.

"I've only got 500 will that work or do you take credit cards?" Tomomi asked.

"Cash only." the man replied.

"Would you be willing to sell one for 500 or break the pack in half for 300?" Tomomi asked.

"This is a business not a charity sweet cheeks. 600 for the whole pack or no deal." the man answered bluntly.

"Come on. Let's find someone else." Justin told her and they walked away.

"Good luck with that! You're not going to beat my prices!" the man jeered at them as they left.

In a way the man was right. As it got deeper into the crisis and supplies became scarcer it would only become more difficult to obtain what they needed.

"I'm going to need to get some money out of the ATM in case we run into this problem again." Tomomi said.

"If it helps I can cover it. I got all the money back on my card from the hotel room I just need to take it out." Justin said.

"There's a bank over there you can get it out at." suggested Sayaka.

The three of them walked over to the bank to discover the ATM was shut down and unplugged.

"It's out of order. You'll have to go inside if you want to get cash." a bank customer standing in line told them.

Tomomi shrugged her shoulders and she and Justin went to the back of the line as a scene was developing between a disgruntled customer and the lone female teller on staff today. They should have known something was up by the presence of increased onsite security and the fact only one teller was servicing a line of about thirty people.

"Ma'am, the ATM is offline and I need to back a withdrawal." the man requested.

"Certainly, how much?" the teller replied.

"11000 yen please." the man told her.

"I'm sorry but I am unable to dispense funds in that amount at this time sir." the teller apologized

"Per bank policy we have temporarily suspended all withdrawals and money transfers greater than 2000 yen as of 06:30 this morning to ensure requisite capitalization of all bank assets. You will be able to withdraw another 2000 tomorrow." the teller politely informed the man.

"2000 yen per day? Who can get by on that?!" the man complained.

"That's about 18 bucks. I could get by on that for one day easy." Justin remarked quietly glancing back to Tomomi.

"I can get my manager if you would like. Perhaps he could explain the situation better to you?" the teller offered.

"To hell with your manager! I want my money." the man demanded.

"You can have your money but only 2000 yen for today." the teller explained.

"It's my money in there! I should be able to take out as much of it as I want." the man protested, slamming his fist down on the platform in front of the teller's window.

"Yeah!" another customer behind him egged him on.

The hostile act caught the eye of one of the security guards who moved towards the man as the confrontation between him and the teller escalated. The onsite security officer attempted to remove the man from the bank before he could make a scene but he was too late. The crowd was becoming unruly and animalistic behavior began to take hold of their better judgement. The man up front pounded on the Plexiglas separating him from the bank teller demanding his money. Other people made threats from the anonymity of the crowd. Tomomi, Sayaka and Justin slinked out of the line just before things really started to get out of hand. As they left the bank the police entered and restrained the man that started the commotion and took him out in handcuffs against the shouts and jeers of the crowd.

As they day went on the tense scene in the streets of Tokyo began to feel more normal. It wasn't as if they couldn't see the alien spacecraft all around them, or the intense militarized presence; it was more as if they felt it had always been there. Perhaps it had been they were so busy on what would be a trivial errand most days that they never really stopped to consider the gravity of the situation. After boarding the train empty handed they sat down in silence, mentally exhausted by all their fruitless efforts. Tomomi placed her hand on top of Justin's and moved her fingers in between the spaces between his, holding his hand from above. Sayaka sat next to Justin on his other side and was glued to her phone texting Kenzou and her friends back and forth as the train began to move.

While they traveled back Justin reflected on what had all transpired since he landed. In a way he was still in shock that all of this was real. It wasn't just the aliens showing up that felt unreal to him but the fact that he had actually gone to Japan. Not so long ago he never would have been the type of person to have done that. Now he was here and on one hand he was extremely happy because he finally got to see Tomomi in the flesh, something else he never thought would happen in real life. On the other hand he felt things hadn't quite turned out the way he had envisioned; it was far from the magical dream vacation he and Tomomi had planned. Who would've thought they would spend their first day on a quest for freaking toilet paper. The one time he had actually managed to do something spontaneous the world got turned upside down.

It felt so strange the series of events that led him here. With how shy he was and how often he would second guess himself Justin still could not believe that he actually had it in him just up and go like he did. The fact that he held true to the path that led him here and didn't chicken out was also equally impressive; this was the most protracted spur of the moment decision he had ever made. Regardless of how split second it was and how it didn't all pan out perfectly he was glad to be here. He was spending time with Tomomi and that was more than he could have ever hoped for, more than he deserved.

The train stopped and the three of them debarked then started on their way home.

"I guess Michitaro is going to have to use your magazines after all." Tomomi teased her sister.

"I guess." Sayaka replied.

"Could we drop by Kenzou's place real quick? I promise I won't take long." Sayaka asked them.

"I guess we could take a little time out to head over there. Why not?" Tomomi replied graciously giving in to her sister. Sayaka had wanted to see him all day and fortune simply did not favor her in that regard.

So they deviated from their present course and made their way to Kenzou's building. When they arrived Sayaka knocked on the door and waited. She heard sounds and movement from inside. A moment later Kenzou's mother answered the door. The sounds of loud music playing from one of the back bedrooms mingled with the voices from the TV in the den were amplified as the door was opened. Sayaka looked slightly downward as she saw the figure in the doorway. Kenzou's mother was shorter than all of them, even Tomomi by a few inches. Though in her early 50s she looked a good 12-15 years younger than she was. Her face had not weathered much with time and retained much of its youthful glow. Nor did her hair reaching down below her waist have one single strand of gray in it. She was a more traditional stay at home mom, possibly contributing to the diminished effects of aging as she was shielded from some of the constant rigors of the world, at least after Kenzou and his twin sister grew up enough that they didn't require constant attention. More so it was probably her positive outlook and the fact that nothing ever really seemed to get to her that had lessened the toll which life's stresses could take on one's body. Even after the aliens came she did not appear perturbed in the least. When asked she would attribute her demeanor to her religious beliefs though would not invite the question. While a religious woman herself it did not show in her home as her husband and children weren't particularly spiritual at all. With a pleasant demeanor about her she smiled and welcomed her son's girlfriend to her home.

"Why hello Sayaka. You've come to see Kenzou I assume?" she greeted them.

"Yes Mrs. Tsurumaki, I've been trying to catch him all day but he's been two steps ahead of me." Sayaka replied.

"Yes he is a slippery one. He's in his room if you, why don't you and your friends come in." Mrs. Tsurumaki offered.

"Thank you. These aren't my friends though; this is my sister Tomomi and her boyfriend. They've been out running errands with me all day." Sayaka explained.

"Oh well then, nice to meet you Tomomi. Sayaka had never told me she had a sister." Mrs. Tsurumaki greeted Tomomi as she bid them entry.

It was only Mrs. Tsurumaki, Kenzou and his sister home tonight. Mr. Tsurumaki was a Senior Superintendent for the Tokyo Metro Police and was out tonight dealing with the problems on the streets.

"She really is such a sweet girl your sister. I bet two of you are like the best of friends." Mrs. Tsurumaki said to Tomomi as she closed the door behind them and locked up.

Tomomi inwardly snickered; Mrs. Tsurumaki really did not have a good bead on Sayaka's personality she thought. Though he had not been specifically addressed Justin became very nervous as the three of them were welcomed into Kenzou's home. He had social anxiety bad. The fact that he knew Tomomi quite well yesterday kind of helped temper it but it still was obscenely awkward. Yesterday he wasn't really the odd man out and now he kind of felt like he was. Strangely enough he could handle aliens coming to Earth no problem but meeting new people, that was a little too much for Justin.

Noticing the TV on in the living room with no one there Justin attempted to make casual conversation. "What'cha watching?" he asked in an attempt to alleviate the anxiety he was feeling.

"Nothing but bad news it seems." Kenzou's mother said as they passed by the TV set.

"Both government services and private business have been severely shorthanded as many Tokyo residents simply did not show up for work today. Those businesses who did open their doors sold out within hours of opening as frightened people sought to stock up in preparation for what could be an extended period of lockdown." a reporter on TV stated.

Just then as the clock struck 6:30 PM the broadcast was interrupted by an emergency bulletin. A robotic voice spoke while a slow moving ticker displayed the same message across the center of the screen. "Curfew will be in effect starting at 8 PM and lasting until 7 AM tomorrow morning. For the safety of all citizens between those hours only emergency personnel and law enforcement will be permitted outside. Anyone caught violating curfew will be arrested and detained until the curfew is lifted. Tokyo residents are advised not to point flashlights, laser pointers or other devices at the alien craft. Anyone caught discharging fireworks or any illegal weapons will receive the maximum penalties allowed by law. Emergency services are working to handle the shortages caused by this morning's panic. In the meantime Tokyo residents are urged to be patient and remain calm. Help is on the way." the message stated, then repeated about seven times before going back to the broadcast program.

"Like I said, bad news." Mrs. Tsurumaki said as she took them into the hallway and knocked on Kenzou's door.

"Kenzou! You have visitors!" she called to him over the loud music he was playing inside.

After the ruffling of some papers and plastic bags was heard in the background Kenzou opened the door, thereby increasing the decibel level of the music threefold. Mrs. Tsurumaki walked away leaving Sayaka and the others there with Kenzou.

"Oh hey Sayaka. Sorry I missed you today, my friends kept pulling me along everywhere and well you know how that goes." Kenzou explained.

"I know. I would have liked it if you made some time for me in your plans today though." Sayaka replied poking him in the chest.

"We got now." Kenzou suggested then leaned in and gave Sayaka a quick peck on the lips.

Tomomi looked away towards Justin's chest and covered the side of her eyes so she didn't see her sister get all affectionate with Kenzou before they went into his room. Kenzou then went into the room turned down the stereo system and plopped onto his bed which was covered with magazines, torn scraps of notebook paper and food wrappers. Sayaka sat down beside him and the two of them made sweet talk with each other while Tomomi and Justin just stood there in the doorway. Kenzou's room was much like one would expect a 17 year old boy's room to be. The floor was messy, covered with dirty clothes and garbage and the walls were plastered with posters of bands and movies he liked. He had a computer set up on a desk along the wall to the right of the door with about nine empty energy drink cans and a tube of Pringles sitting to the left side of the screen and a crunched up can of soda pop on the right side by the mouse pad. There were also a number of sheets of blank paper filled with his drawings stacked up on the shelves and niches by his computer. His bed was set against the far wall with a window a meter or so from the foot of his bed that was looking out onto the city with a direct unobstructed view of the alien mothership. To the left of Tomomi and Justin there was a large flat screen TV and several video game systems set up for Kenzou to play from his bed or by rolling his computer chair in front of his bed. Stacks of games and movies were piled up next to the TV leaving his shelves practically bare, save for a couple empty cans of Monster Energy. There was, as it would be a trash can sitting on the near side of Kenzou's bed which was overflowing with garbage.

"Umm, we'll wait out in the living room." Tomomi excused herself and Justin when Sayaka and Kenzou began openly making out.

They closed the door and went back into the living room where Mrs. Tsurumaki was tidying up. In contrast to Kenzou's room the rest of the house was immaculate. She intentionally did not pick up after Kenzou; the boy was 17 and should be able to pick up after himself she believed. If he didn't clean up his mess he would just be left to live in his filth until such time that his dad finally dropped the hammer and forced him to tidy up. That usually happened once a month give or take.

"Are you leaving already?" she asked Tomomi and Justin supposing Sayaka to be coming right behind them.

"No, They needed some time to themselves we didn't want to be a bother. It felt awkward you know?" Tomomi confessed without directly indicting her sister.

"Ah yeah, I know how kids get when they're in love." Mrs. Tsurumaki replied giving a clear implication that she knew about the physical nature of Sayaka and Kenzou's relationship.

Kenzou had mentioned the way his parents felt about he and Sayaka's relationship before but Tomomi had always assumed he was making it up. Kenzou was a pathological liar and exaggerated the details in just about every story he told. However when it came to his parents and the "birds and the bees" he was telling the truth after all. In stark contrast to her dad the Tsurumaki's were quite lax in their rules concerning their son's behavior. Boys will be boys was a phrase often uttered when discussing such things with other parents. They were the type of parents who rather than forbidding dating and all the things it led to had encouraged it and often had an open dialogue with their son about it. Kenzou's "sex talk" was more like instructions and tips rather than a warning. The fact that he could ask his mom for advice in giving a woman an orgasm seemed beyond insane to Tomomi. Still he was practically an adult so why not treat him as one? They should at least make sure he's using protection, thought Tomomi as she mentally stuck her nose in her sister's business for a brief moment.

"So what about you two? How long have you been together? I can see you're not from Japan, did you move here or are you planning on moving? If you're looking for work I know some people who can help you find a job, well after all this alien stuff calms down." Mrs. Tsurumaki asked them.

Tomomi spoke up as Justin was too bashful to answer. "We're going on about seven years now." Tomomi guessed going on the relative time they had met each other. It had really been that long, she thought, quite impressed with herself. She was only 12, almost 13 and Justin had just turned 15 as she had recalled. Of course back in those days they were far from falling in love though it didn't take much for her to develop an infatuation with the guy. When exactly Justin developed feelings in return she couldn't say, probably quite a bit later on but he had kept those to himself for years as well.

"He's actually not moving here. I'm going to be moving back with him next month. We're going to go to university together." Tomomi answered for Justin. Well she would be going back if the university opened on schedule and the airlines began operating again.

"Aww well that sure is sweet." Mrs. Tsurumaki replied.

"Hold on to this one, she definitely is a keeper." She turned and said to Justin while pointing at Tomomi.

"I will ma'am." Justin replied.

"I'd hate to be a bother but do you think we could borrow a couple rolls of toilet paper? We're all out at home and all the stores are sold out, and we went to a lot of them today." Tomomi asked.

"Oh certainly dear, we've got plenty to spare." Mrs. Tsurumaki answered.

She then went into the hall closet next to the bathroom which was across from Kenzou and his sister's rooms. She took out two rolls of toilet paper, brought them back and handed them to Tomomi.

"Thank you Mrs. Tsurumaki. We'll pay you back as soon as we can." Tomomi thanked her.

"No need for that dear. We're glad to help out." Mrs. Tsurumaki replied.

Just then Kenzou's sister, Hoshiko came out into the hall.

"Mom! Are you making anything for dinner?" she shouted from around the corner.

"If you want me to I can. Kenzou already stuffed himself on hot pockets so I figured you kids would take care of yourself." she called back to her.

"Fine, I'll just heat up some instant udon then." Hoshiko responded.

She stepped out of the hall and made her way towards the kitchen to grab a quick meal.

"Hey." she said nodding at Justin and Tomomi as she passed by.

Hoshiko was kind of a punkish girl and dressed in sort of a pop punk style with an extremely short skirt, black leather boots that went halfway up the calf and a neon pink and black horizontally striped sleeveless shirt. She was slender in the mid-section but not petite. She firm arms and legs which made her look anything but frail. Her right arm was adorned with a well done, albeit illegally acquired tattoo of a coiled dragon wrapped around the upper arm and garnished with thorny ivy and floral patterns. She had straight cut bangs and long evenly trimmed onyx black hair on the sides and back. She had a few streaks of bright pink, red and blue to her hair as well and wore thick eyeliner and makeup which only accentuated the contrast between her prominent features and the rest of her face.

Hoshiko prepared her dinner without bothering the guests and took it back to her room, nodding once again to acknowledge their presence as they were chatting with her mom. A while later the music stopped coming from Kenzou's room and he and Sayaka joined them in the living room.

"So how was your first day out?" Kenzou asked Justin.

"Aside from all the world changing stuff going on it was pretty dull. We spent most of the day chasing down toilet paper. I never imagined that would be so difficult." Justin replied.

"Yeah, it's usually not that bad." Kenzou laughed. "You're not going to get much of a real taste of Tokyo today. All of the cool places are closed. Sorry bro but ET just rained on your parade." Kenzou told him.

"At least with all the freaky spaceships flying around today it kept people from staring at you all weird like." Kenzou remarked.

Justin looked at him curiously as if he didn't understand. "You see people in Tokyo are intrigued by anything exotic and kitschy and you sir are exotic and kitschy around here." Kenzou explained.

It made sense he supposed. It was probably the reverse of how the handful of Japanese Americans that lived back in the US felt when they were viewed as interesting and exotic. It wasn't as if Justin ever noticed it just made sense to some degree.

"Say where exactly in the States are you from?" asked Kenzou.

"Alabama." answered Justin.

"Really. I would have guessed Cleveland or something. You don't sound like you're from Alabama." Kenzou replied.

"Not everyone picks up the accent I suppose. I was born in Illinois but my family moved to Huntsville when I was 3 years old so I doubt that had any effect on anything." Justin told him.

"It's getting late." Tomomi said noticing the kitchen clock. "We should be heading home before the curfew begins. Dad and Yuki will be worried if we're not back." she continued.

Sayaka and Kenzou kissed before she joined her sister on her way to the door. "I won't blow you off tomorrow baby. I promise. Sweet dreams, don't let the spacemen get you alright?" Kenzou said as they parted company.

"Thanks again for everything Mrs. Tsurumaki." Tomomi said nodding in respect before opening the door.

They then returned home. Outside police were hurrying the remaining citizens along their way. They noticed a pair of anti-aircraft batteries moving along between MRAPS as the JSDF presence on the streets began to increase. Military helicopters passed overhead as they circled the city. A command and control substation was being established in an office tower which primarily housed tech firms who had all gone AWOL following the arrival. The relative calm of the daylight hours had quickly tensed up again, the coming darkness revealing the fear which had festered beneath the surface while Tokyo had bathed in the light.

When the older siblings walked in the door they found Michitaro watching one of the news programs that continued to dominate every channel in between intermittent emergency alert messages. Yuki was on the couch with her head buried down focusing on a game she was playing on her Nintendo DS. Sayaka walked past them towards her room while Tomomi and Justin stopped and looked over at the TV. There was live feed from Jakarta showing another one of the large craft with a disc shaped vessel beneath it and several dozen cigar shaped craft moving between the two. The text displayed on the screen read "Extraterrestrial craft appear over cities worldwide. Do they come in peace?"

"A US Naval helicopter crashed today after coming too close to the Tokyo mothership. It's believed that all onboard systems failed moments before the crash though it remains unclear if this was due to some kind of defensive system on the alien vessel or merely an accident." the reporter stated.

"Another unanswered question it seems. Now the big question everyone wants to know is why are they here? Do these creatures come in peace or like so many Hollywood movies, video games and comic books would lead you to believe do they have more sinister purposes for our planet?" the host segwayed from the report the upcoming opinion program.

"We now welcome our military affairs analyst retired Major General Yataro Fukunaga and renowned physicist and futurist Mitsuharu Matsuo." the host announced.

"Gentlemen, you are both well respected in your fields. You've got a good grasp on both military strategy and possible technologies that may not exist yet. From your perspective do you think the aliens would have any hostile intent towards us? the host posed the question.

"Why would they make any aggressive actions against us? What purpose would it serve? We're talking about a civilization that can travel between star systems, galaxies perhaps. They've got to be least a Type I or Type II civilization to do that while we're down here as a puny little Type 0.7. They're probably about as concerned with us as we are with ants." Dr. Matsuo replied.

"They do seem to notice us. They've positioned their ships over the places with the highest population density. You can't say they're completely ignoring us." General Fukunaga replied.

"That doesn't necessarily mean they feel threatened by us. These beings are likely scientists, just like we would be if we ever managed to get out there among the stars. If they have any interest in us whatsoever they simply want to study us and our civilization." Dr. Matsuo added.

"I thought we agreed not to watch that stuff with Yuki around?" Tomomi scolded Michitaro after closing the door behind everyone.

"She's fine. It only scares her when it's dark outside." Michitaro blew her off.

Yuki looked up from her Nintendo DS with her brow lowered and a mild scowl on her face indicating that Michitaro was clearly misrepresenting her. Hearing about how bad things could get frightened her regardless. She could use her games to distract her but the fear was always there. It was bad enough when she had to worry about imaginary things in the shadows that were out to get her. Now there were very real monsters out there that could be looking to get her. Even if the aliens were peaceful Yuki knew she would be totally scared if she ever saw one of them.

"There's nothing else on. All the channels are wall to wall news coverage. Even the music channels are nothing but aliens, aliens, aliens." Michitaro complained.

"You could just put one of Yuki's cartoons on. Oh, and here's your toilet paper." Tomomi rebuked him before tossing the rolls in his direction.

Michitaro caught the toilet paper rolls and looked up at Tomomi "I'd rather be informed than have things come out of the blue and hit me." Michitaro remarked.

"You are so much like your father." Tomomi sighed as she bent down and picked a pair of pillows off the ground and set them back on the couch.

"Speaking of, did dad ever come home?" Tomomi asked after she stood back up.

"Not yet. I guess he had to go along with his usual work day before he could leave." Michitaro replied.

"Could've at least given us the courtesy of a phone call." Tomomi complained.

"You know how he gets with his work." Michitaro replied.

"In a word, obsessive." Sayaka commented.

"That he is. He better punch out early though because that curfew is still in effect." Michitaro added.

Tomomi and Yuki both looked over at the clock above the entertainment center. There was less than twenty minutes until the city went on lockdown. If their father wasn't home soon he wasn't coming home tonight.


	10. Chapter 9: Hanbun Sekai Hanare

_**Author's Note:** Going to show a little bit of what is happening on the other side of the world via connections with the primary characters. Don't worry we're getting back to Japan next chapter._

Chapter IX: Hanbun Sekai Hanare

24 Aug 2000 JST

Tokyo, Japan

After the clock struck 8 it was clear that Dr. Kusanagi wasn't coming home again today. The Kusanagi siblings would be spending another night without their father; it would be yet another night where much would weigh on their minds. Sleep would not come easy and Yuki would be the one to openly display the concerns and nervousness they all felt. As daylight faded and night claimed the sky the eerie blue glow of the passing alien fighters would shimmer past their window as they glided on gracefully overhead. The streets which were usually a sea of cars with their headlights and tail lights forming rivers of white and red were now dark furrows punctuated with the spotlights shining from the various police checkpoints and military vehicles as they patrolled the city. Even the buildings were darker than usual as several families had left the city and went out into the countryside to seek refuges in smaller towns and villages away from the motherships which hovered over the large cities.

At this time Justin remembered that he needed to check on his family. His phone had sat on Sayaka's charger all day and was fully charged. When he picked it up he saw that he had no messages or missed calls. Apparently if nothing had happened to them, they weren't particularly concerned about him. His parents never really paid him much attention anyways; they always seemed to view him as something of a burden. They were probably elated when he went off to Japan. They probably wouldn't care if he stayed here, which he would do for Tomomi but the two of them already had made plans stateside. He tried calling home but there was no answer and of course the voicemail was full. His parents never checked their messages. They were usually collection calls or some stupid survey they didn't want to deal with so they had cause to ignore them. At least delete them every once and a while, thought Justin, so when someone had something important to say they could get through. He looked at the clock; it would have only been 0600 back home so maybe they were all still asleep. He hung up the phone and put it back in his pocket. Under pressure from Tomomi and Sayaka Michitaro set up the PlayStation in the living room so that all of them could play games to distract themselves from the aliens and their worries about their loved ones.

Justin finally managed to get a hold of his dad around eleven PM that night, which would have made it 9 in the morning for his parents. For another hour it would actually be the same day in both Japan and the US, something that Justin hadn't quite gotten used to.

"Hello." his dad answered.

"Dad, it's me, Justin. What are you doing sleeping so late? I've been trying to get a hold of you all day." Justin said.

"Well now you got me boy, what do you want?" his dad replied sounding a bit annoyed.

"Just wanted to let you know that I was ok and check in on how the family was doing." Justin answered.

"We're fine. There haven't been any of those ships flying around here. Your mom thought she saw one of the little ones but it was just an F-22." his dad explained.

"Your Grandpa is coming up from Atlanta. He says he doesn't want to be in the cities with those things overhead." he continued.

"Oh, when's he going to be there?" Justin asked.

"He's supposed to be delivering a load to the Huntsville Wal-Mart at 11 so he should be here sometime after noon if you want to give him a ring." his dad suggested

"If I can manage to stay up that long. There's a 14 hour time difference so that's going to be like 2 in the morning here."

"Psssht you wuss. You never could have made it in the Corps. Anyways I'll let him know you called." his dad derisively replied.

Being mocked by his father was nothing new to Justin. He had grown up with it all his life. It had always seemed like his father never wanted a child, that his mom forced him upon his father. In return all of his life his dad made Justin feel that very thing, as if he was not wanted. His father would tell him openly how he ruined his life and all of the plans he had made for the future were flushed down the toilet once Justin came around. He had toned it down since he had grown up but the disdain in his voice was always there. All in all his dad seemed to show preference for his nephews over his own son; Justin would always be compared to them and told how he never would stack up. His oldest cousin was working as personal security for various VIP clients after his time in the Marines while the younger cousin who was around Justin's age had already established a breakout online company and was earning a six figure income, more than the rest of the family combined, while still in college studying law. In contrast his father felt Justin was destined to be a failure, he didn't have the drive to succeed regardless of where he went. He believed Justin to be an entitled, lazy worthless human being who would always be a burden to the family and in truth was glad to have the boy out of the country for the moment. His mother was more supportive but she had always deferred to his father as the head of the household so it was his rules by which Justin had to live by. The only time she had really but her foot down was when she was pregnant with Justin. She was adamant not to abort her child as his father insisted and nearly divorced him over it. Justin saw his mother as a strong woman who settled for far less than she deserved though she admired her for putting up with his dad all these years for his sake.

His dad hung up without as much as saying goodbye and Justin put away his phone. He didn't let it get to him anymore. Honestly it didn't bother him. He was too happy here and preoccupied with UFOs to let the memories of his home life get in the way. Eventually his home life would be just him and Tomomi and whatever classes they happened to have together, assuming all things went as they had planned. He hopped back on the PlayStation to join Tomomi in some MMO while Sayaka and Yuki slept in a pile on the other side of them and Michitaro was in his room observing some commotion with the police outside. Though his family wasn't particularly concerned with what was going on with him he still was concerned with their wellbeing.

24 Aug 0907 CDT

Georgia State Highway 48 near the Alabama/Georgia line, United States

Floyd Connor, Justin's grandfather drove his dusty old 18 wheeler along a narrow two lane road in the woods on his way between Atlanta and Huntsville. Once he had cleared the pandemonium on the interstates he was making excellent time on these quiet country back roads. There were few cars on the road at all. The aliens paid no attention to these sparsely populated tracts of back country so the people here had little reason to back up and move.

At the ripe old age of 72 Floyd was still working full time as an independent contractor for a medium sized trucking firm operating in the American Southeast. He never wanted to be a burden on his family which was barely scraping by as is and as long as he was healthy enough to still make something of himself he didn't want to turn in his keys and suckle off whatever little bits of his investment that Social Security would pay back to him. A fiercely independent man he couldn't bear the thought of losing his independence and as he went deeper into elder hood that possibility increased day by day. If it was up to him he probably would be out trying to support himself until the day they put him in the ground.

He noticed a broken down box truck and a van on the side of the road ahead of him. He noticed they were abandoned as he slowed down and passed by. The box truck bore the logo of a rental company operating of Atlanta. Apparently someone was smart enough to head out via the side roads; they simply weren't smart enough to check their vehicles before they left. He continued on down the narrow two lane road winding through a seemingly endless sea of trees stretching out on either side of the road.

Eventually he came to a spot where road ahead of him was completely blocked off by a row of orange and white A-frame construction barricades and barrels. A lone road worker was out waving a couple cars through the barricade before sealing it back off. The worker held up a stop sign and raised his hand towards Floyd as his truck approached and slowed down. Fine time for them to shut the back roads down, thought Floyd as he applied the brakes.

Once he had stopped a man in hunting fatigues emerged from the woods on the north side of the road. He had a full beard, neatly trimmed down to a quarter inch in length which was the same color as his dirty blonde, almost light brown hair. The man carried a bolt action hunting rifle on his back and an obvious large knife on his belt, much as if he was a hunter out in these woods stalking deer. He spoke into a walkie talkie as he approached the truck. Soon after six other men came out of the trees on both sides of the road and it became clear these weren't hunters or construction workers, they were brigands. These men were armed with a sawed off shotgun, baseball bats, knives and lead pipes. The man dressed as a road worker picked up a large pair of bolt cutters from behind a pair of the orange barrels and followed their apparent leader around to the side of the truck. This was a scene he had seen played out during the two years he had done contract work for a Christian relief organization in Uganda but never in his wildest dreams would he imagine this happening in America. With the state police preoccupied with keeping the peace in the cities and local sheriff's deputies overwhelmed in their own jurisdictions it had left the wilderness in a state of lawlessness. This had been beneficial for him to make excellent time after he got out of Atlanta without having to worry about any roadside inspections. The downside was that with rapidly escalating shortages of food and fuel coupled with the desperation people were feeling it had led to conditions which resulted in the predicament he found himself in.

"Highwaymen in this day and age. What is this, Mexico? I thought this was America." he grumbled.

Seeing the men approach Floyd locked his doors and nervously waited. He didn't carry a weapon in his truck; it was too much of a risk to run afoul of the law when transporting a firearm across state lines. He lived in Upstate New York for most of his younger years which had some rather unfriendly rules against gun culture in that state so it basically stuck with him even after moving to the Midwest and later the South along with his youngest son, Justin's father. He was regretting being left so unarmed at this time though; he hadn't as much as a butter knife to defend himself with. There were screwdrivers in his side compartment but to get to them he would have to go outside and in doing that he would be down on the ground before he knew what hit him. Every scenario Floyd worked out in his head turned out nasty for him. The leader took the rifle off his back and held it in one hand when he stepped up to the driver's side door and knocked on it.

"I see ya in there fella. Don't be shy; we don't want to hurt ya. We just want to talk." the leader said.

The man had a Southern accent but it wasn't an Alabama or Georgia one. It sounded more like an Appalachian drawl, from either Kentucky or West Virginia. Being an outsider he could pick apart the subtle differences in people's accents in this region and tell them apart. So whoever they were they likely were not residents of the tiny communities out here in the boondocks.

Without much of a choice Floyd rolled the window down. The worst thing that could happen to him is that he could die. At his age death could come at any minute, what difference did it really matter if he met his end at the hands of some unruly highwaymen today or in a hospital bed on the morrow, or when an alien spaceship dropped a photon torpedo on his head a few days after that. When the Good Lord called him up that was his time; now could have been as good a time as any for him to go "home."

The leader hopped up on the side catwalk and grabbed onto Floyd's mirror. "Now that's more like it fella. It's nice when they cooperate. Less messy that way." the leader said, scrunching his face with dramatic inflection as he spoke.

"So what'cha hauling?" the man asked.

Floyd handed him his freight bills, there wasn't anything remarkable on there. It was assorted merchandise for Wal-Mart stores.

"Ah, Wally World eh? You shop at Wally World, pal? Of course you do, what kind of hayseed truck driving tobacco chewing hunk of aged white trash wouldn't walk down to the old Wally World for some cut rate shit in a box." the leader remarked derisively mocking Floyd.

The man handed his rifle down to one of his minions on the ground who passed him a sawed off shotgun in exchange.

"Now the first thing I've got to tell you is that we'll be needing all of this ok. So if you would be a good Southern gentleman and kindly hand over the keys." the leader said pointing the shotgun through the window.

Floyd reached down to shut off the engine and retract the keys. "Easy now, let's not get an itch on my trigger finger shall we." the leader said.

Floyd handed the keys to the brigand leader who tossed them over his shoulder into the woods somewhere. "Good bitch." the leader mockingly praised Floyd.

The man then leaned off the side of the truck and announced to his crew before hopping down "This truck and everything on it are now the property of the people!"

"What people?" Floyd asked.

"My, my so it speaks! The crusty old fuck still has a voice box!" the leader ridiculed Floyd further.

"What people you ask, all the people!" the man declared.

"You see my good man, times are tough, people have needs. The corporations ain't meeting those needs, the gub'ment sure as hell ain't not jack shit and I can't expect Ol' ET to air drop me a case of beer on a Monday night. So somebody's got to do it, why not us?" the man explained.

"Someone your age, still out here driving a rig, surely you understand." the leader looked up and told Floyd.

"You see we're like a modern day Robin Hood; steal from the rich, give to the poor, and take a little for ourselves of course." the man charismatically remarked.

The leader took out his radio and squeezed the button holding it to his face. "Billy go pull the van up we've got ourselves some work to do." the man said over the walkie talkie.

He then motioned to three of the men standing around who went to the back of the truck and used the bolt cutters to pop off the lock holding the rear door shut. Minutes later the box truck he had seen broke down on the highway had pulled up beside Floyd's trailer. Two more men got out of it and started to help the ones in the back transfer the contents of Floyd's trailer into their own. The leader of the brigands sent a couple more men back to help leaving only one henchman with the leader at the front of the vehicle. An alien fighter craft screamed past them overhead causing them to stop what they were doing just for a moment and look up.

"Why don't you just take the truck?" Floyd asked as he watched what was going on through his mirrors.

"We ain't stupid grandpa. We know these things can be tracked and Ol' Sheriff Mc Friendly's gonna be out looking for us after he gives space ace up there a speeding ticket." the leader replied.

"We're also not all that bad of people. You see we ain't gonna leave you stranded out here. Once we're done getting all that good stuff out of the back there we'll let you go back along your merry way." the brigand leader said.

"Why don't you come on out now? You're going to have to get back there and help us unload these goodies." the leader said, threatening Floyd once again with the shotgun.

Floyd opened the door and slowly stepped down from his cab.

"I'd hate to ask a man of your age to do manual labor but I can't have you running off on us." the leader remarked.

Once Floyd was on the ground the bandit leader went over to him and patted him on the back. "Don't feel bad buddy. It's not going to matter that you lost your load out here. It's just money. Who gives a fuck about money anyways? If you've heard the news it won't be worth jack shit in a couple weeks. You got space invaders up there figuring out the best ways to cook us over a side of rice and all the looney little governments of the world trying to burn it all down before they get a chance to take a wee little nibble. So fuck it! With the way the world is going heck we might as well enjoy our last days upon it right?" the leader mockingly comforted him while escorting him to the rear of the truck.

"Damn in TaeShawn I should've brought your sister along instead of you. Move your ass! Hurry up and load those baked beans onto the van!" the brigand leader shouted at an obese black man among those transferring the contents of Floyd's truck.

"What about the baby formula? What do we do with it?" a scruffy looking red headed man in a flannel shirt and jeans asked.

"Take it. We can still exchange it or sell it." the leader instructed him.

"Ain't no one around these parts got any youngins to feed that shit too. Might best be saving some space in case we get another one today." the man objected.

"You sure are fucking dense you god damned jackass!" the leader said as he stepped up onto the truck and slapped the man across the face before helping Floyd onto his trailer.

"There ain't gonna be another one today. Somehow or another Johnny Law is gonna find out what we did here and will send someone out here. By then we best be long gone. Besides this'll fetch a high price back in Atlanta. So stop jacking off up here and hop to it ya shit." the leader told him.

In a little under an hour the bandits had nearly emptied out Floyd's truck while filling a total of 3 of their vehicles before taking off and leaving Floyd inside his trailer with his keys lost somewhere in the ditch.

23 Aug 2001 EDT

Cambridge MA, United States

Tom Mason was watching the evening news with his wife and three children. What had happened last night was a major event in world history. As a history professor Tom was obligated to see that his children were there to witness such historic events unfold so that when the books were written about the day we first made contact with beings from beyond our world they would be reliable firsthand witnesses to said events. Some day they will be the ones to tell the story; the story of when they made history.

"Be advised the some of the following images are graphic and may be too disturbing for children." The reporter on the TV warned.

At first they saw people and families frantically packing their vehicles. The next shot saw a mass of cars pushing their way through a congested freeway at dawn. One car squeezed over on the shoulder ripping the mirrors off of another car as it sped around it. The scene then changed to an incident several hours earlier where a man was ran over by a fleeing pickup truck. There were then random images of people abandoning their vehicles and running.

"What you are seeing here are scenes recorded during the flight out of Los Angeles this morning. From the moment the ships appeared over the city people had taken to the hills in a mad frenzy. As the daylight broke the problem only got worse as Angelinos attempted to empty the metro area and get as far away from the alien mothership as possible." The reporter narrated.

"Like with many major disasters this one had its share of opportunistic elements to take advantage of the chaos. As the citizens of LA abandoned their homes they left thieves and looters in their wake. With the local authorities overwhelmed in the pre-dawn hours incidents of theft and vandalism skyrocketed." The reporter continued.

The screen displayed several images of people throwing bricks through the windows of homes and businesses along with other shots of people carrying away stolen goods from these places. The program showed a fistfight between two men as one was going for the other man's car. The next scene displayed a man running up behind an unsuspecting victim and striking the back of the knees with an aluminum baseball bat. Once the victim dropped to his knees the aggressor clubbed him in the back of the head rendering him unconscious and leaving him to drop limp onto the pavement. The network blurred out the next image which displayed the man striking the man's head against the pavement with the bat after he was down and then picking through his pockets to steal whatever he had. There were then shots of homes being set on fire and a group of youths killing a dog.

"The Mayor has accepted full responsibility for the night's events stating that if city services had reacted faster when the evacuation started to spiral out of control this morning's tragedy would have never occurred. He intends to resign by the end of next week and is calling on several city officials to do the same." The reporter stated as the screen shifted to a muted press conference with the Los Angeles mayor.

"Since that time the California National Guard and Army Reserve units that have been activated have secured the city with the aid of state and local police forces. A curfew has been established after dark and the police are now searching for suspects in the rash of violent crimes which occurred amidst the early stages of the evacuation. The mayor is calling on all Angelinos should they chose to leave the city to do so in a calm and orderly manner." the reporter continued.

"Why didn't that happen here?" Matt asked his dad.

"I don't know. We'd like to say that we're better people than that but that's not the case; they're the same as you and me. The truth is you never know just what people will do when they're under that kind of pressure.

The news changed topics and went on to a supposed expert guest to speculate about the alien ships themselves.

"Say dad, do you think we'll ever be able to travel to other planets?" Ben asked.

"I can't say. Maybe these aliens will be nice and share their technology with us. Maybe they think we aren't ready. One thing we know for sure is that now it is possible to travel between the stars and we can hope that our own space program can get a renewed interest in tackling that problem." Tom replied.

"I'd like to see what they look like. Do they look like the aliens we think of? The suspense is killing me!" Matt exclaimed.

"Maybe they look like Ewoks?" Ben suggested.

"That would be super cute!" Matt said.

"Careful what you wish for Matty; they might be scary aliens that like to eat little boys for breakfast." Hal said walking around the back of the couch and tickling Matt from behind.

Matt curled into a ball and giggled while Hal played with him. All of the sudden there was a knock at the door.

"I wonder who that could be?" asked Tom.

"I'll check it out dad." Hal said.

He walked to the door and picked up an umbrella to use as a weapon in case it turned out to be a crazed loon outside waiting to rob them. He peeked through the peephole and saw an azure blue eye staring back at him. Hal stepped back and cracked open the door to see his girlfriend Karen standing there. When Hal opened the door he had the umbrella positioned between his legs to where Karen, had she been a robber would have seen that he was "armed" and might think again.

"Is that an umbrella between your legs or are you just happy to see me?" Karen wise cracked.

"Who is it?" Tom asked.

"It's just Karen!" Hal turned and shouted back.

"Just Karen? Some boyfriend you are." Karen sarcastically teased Hal.

The two of them leaned in and kissed in the doorway. "Ewww, get a room!" Matt said.

"Ah zip it squirt." Karen playfully snapped at Matt as she was welcomed into the Mason home.

Ben looked over to see her walk in as well. "Hi Ben." Karen said, acknowledging his presence.

Ben smiled, too shy to say anything to her. He liked Karen. Out of all of Hal's girlfriends she seemed to be the most pleasant to be around. She was generally nice to him, well more so than his brother. She didn't ignore Ben or join in with Hal in demeaning him, well most of the time. Hal's last girlfriend, a busty redhead who he forgot the name of was a total jerk to Ben and even to Matt and Ben was more than glad when his brother broke up with her. That relationship was based on little more than physical attraction. With Karen there seemed to be something more going on between her and Hal, as if Hal could have more going on in his head than sports, girls and shallow thoughts. It wasn't like Karen wasn't attractive in her own right; in Ben's eyes she was probably the most attractive girl that Hal had brought home. She was a natural blonde, with pale yellow almost white hair and a fair complexion. Ben had always been partial to blondes and a tough girl who could take charge really appealed to him. Despite the fact Ben found her to be an angel in human form she was quite the tomboy. Ben imagined her like the legendary Norse Valkyries of old. Ben felt guilty because he found himself attracted to her and it was obvious by the way Ben acted around her, even more awkward with an increased incidence of foot in mouth syndrome. It wasn't like he wanted to feel that way; still he couldn't help but fantasize about her. Despite what he saw as his inability to hide his feelings neither Hal nor Karen noticed. Ben was totally in the friend zone with Karen and in the annoying little brother zone with Hal. The only one who had picked up on Ben's attraction towards her so far was Tomomi and she was half a world away and would never tell anyone. In Ben's mind Karen was his perfect type, though his mental image edited away some of the more acerbic elements and those contrary to his fantasy and replaced them with aspects which correlated more closely to Ben's own ideal. In Ben's mind she loved Harry Potter; in reality Karen never read the series and only saw the movies once. It was sad if he thought about it that his love life was vicariously lived through his brother. He wanted someone of his own but just didn't seem to draw the attention of anyone enough to get it. Ben had few friends, and even fewer in real life around Boston and all of them were to some degree nerdy little bookworms whom he shared interests with but didn't find any of them attractive, even the ones that did happen to be female. Ben wasn't attracted to Tomomi who was spoken for and lived half a world away, nor was he attracted to Kristen, a spunky Trekkie girl who lived down the block and had been friends with Ben since he was a little kid. Those were about all the girls whom Ben knew on his own. Yeah there were intellectual connections there and they all enjoyed talking to each other but the physical attraction was simply not there on Ben's part. Having very little luck with real girls Ben had to make do with creating a fantasy version of his brother's girlfriend in his mind. At least this time it was actually something plausible to create. Karen didn't notice Ben's protracted stare because she was soon after addressed by the head Mason in charge of the Mason tribe.

"Oh hello there Karen. We're just lounging around keeping up with our space neighbors you know." Tom greeted her.

"That's actually what I wanted to tell you guys about. I found out something totally awesome about the spaceships." Karen explained.

"Oh, what is it?" Tom asked.

"I can't really explain it to you. I'd have to show you." Karen said.

She then turned to Hal. "Hal, you got a minute? I want to show you something really cool."

"Sure thing." Hal said.

"Go get your helmet and bring a spare for Ben too." Karen told Hal.

"You probably wouldn't want Matt to come would you Mr. Mason?" Karen asked Tom.

"No, not with all that's going on out there. I'd rather him stay in with us." Tom said.

"I'll go get your inhaler Ben, make sure to use it if you need to." Rebecca mentioned as she stood up and went into the kitchen.

"I haven't had an attack in months Mom." Ben said, feeling embarrassed by his mother.

"You can never be too careful." Rebecca cautioned him.

The whole time Hal was gone Ben stood there looking at Karen and then meekly looking away, hoping not to draw attention to himself by acting like a creeper. How Hal picked this one up he didn't know. Judging by her mildly athletic physique he probably played sports and that is where they clicked. Karen didn't seem so much like Hal's type on the surface being unlike the vapid, hollow, submissive girls that Hal usually dated. It was the fact that they were both alpha types that ironically clicked with Hal's competitive desire in as much as their whole relationship became a contest to outdo one another. They enjoyed the competition and frankly the thrill of one upping each other was what seemed to get them hot for each other. Ben couldn't help thinking about if he had Karen that he would let her win every time.

After Hal came back downstairs he tossed his Speed Racer patterned motorcycle helmet to Ben and kept his black and red one for himself. They went outside, took Hal's secondhand Kawasaki bike out of the garage and walked it over alongside Karen's brand new Ducati. Hal got on his motorcycle and revved it up while Ben got the privilege of riding on the back of Karen's.

"You be careful!" Tom called to the kids before they zipped off into the night.

As they went through the streets of Cambridge and over the bridge leading into Boston proper the Mason brothers saw many things. Overhead the crystal blue glow of alien fighters coming and going from the mothership were like fireflies on a hot July night. The sound of helicopter rotors increased as both military and news choppers passed over them while on the bridge. The Boston side of the bridge too was secured by Army Reserve MRAPs and M113s, one of which was manned by one Captain Daniel Weaver who looked curiously over at the boys heading into town. The mayor nor governor had not declared an official curfew for Boston with the state of emergency so as of yet there was nothing Weaver could do, though feeling suspicious he radioed in their activity to the local police so that they could observe them. There was cause for the suspicion for once inside Boston there were scattered incidences of vandalism and breaking into stores and homes that had been abandoned by the residents of the city that fled to Western Mass and the Vermont hinterlands. They passed a trio of youths spray painting the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man raping something that looked like a cat on the back side of a department store.

"Just look away." Karen advised them as they sped off.

They went downtown directly beneath the alien mothership and dismounted, standing in Christopher Columbus Park, just north of the Boston Aquarium. There were small trees neatly arranged in rows along paths in this small clearing between the historic buildings of downtown Boston. It wasn't the manmade scenery that intrigued them. The three teenagers looked up at the smooth silent alien mothership. There were small twinkling lights that appeared and disappeared on its nearly featureless lower surface. The skin of the ship seemed so perfectly smooth with an almost soft texture to it despite the fact it was made clearly of a very hard and durable substance.

"Now check this out." Karen said taking out a pocket compass.

Hal and Ben leaned over her and looked down; the compass was spinning wildly around and around.

As they were fancying the magnetic effects generated by the mothership one of the larger versions of the alien fighter craft emerged out of a circular port that seemed to open up seamlessly in the sky on the mothership and dropped straight down in front of Karen, Hal and Ben. Their attention was immediately turned towards it as it stood there hovering mere feet off the ground. It was so much larger up close than from a distance. This craft being one of the larger varieties was easily larger than the Mason's own house. It did not move, sway or vibrate as if it could lock itself in position in the air. The main body of the craft was an ovoid shape with at least three pairs of extensions which overlapped to form the "wings" of the characteristically butterfly shape. The luminous colorful lights were strongest from the underside of these wings and right now were all in a deep shade of ocean blue. The skin of the vessel itself seemed to have a dark aphotic glow to it as well, an almost imperceptible light to the human eye.

There was something more to it as well, something radiating from inside the craft. Karen felt it, like something was calling out to her from within. Ben felt it too, he couldn't explain it, it was like a deep longing, a need that compelled him to go further. At that moment there was a brief flash of absolute connection between Ben, Karen and the unknown force emanating from the ship. Hal was puzzled by the strange zombified behavior in the others as he did not sense this calling that they did. Karen looked over at Ben, who thankfully did not have thoughts of her in his mind at this time or they would have become known, and saw him transfixed by the enigmatic spacecraft. If this was the voice of the aliens who directed it then their voices were truly alien indeed

In a trance Ben moved towards the alien vessel. It remained perfectly still, undaunted by his advance, being ever the more motionless as if it was allowing him to come. There was no heat or pressure emitted from the craft just a gentle blue glow bathing him in its steady tranquil light. There was a faint buzzing sound like that from a muted TV screen emanating from the vessel. It felt comforting, like the embrace of a mother swaddling an infant child. He reached out to touch the surface of the ship but before his fingers touched its sleek outer surface a police siren went off behind him.

Officer Anthony Welker who had been tailing the kids from a distance in case they caused trouble had now decided it was time to intervene.

"Kids! Step away from the spaceship!" Anthony called out over a megaphone.

Karen looked back and Hal ran forward and pulled Ben away from the spaceship before his fingertips touched it. As Hal and Ben fell backwards onto the grass the ship shot straight up into the air, stopped before colliding with the mothership and then bolted away towards the south.

"What was that all about?" Hal asked Ben as he helped his brother stand up.

"I don't know. It was weird, like it was calling me. . .home." Ben said still in a bit of a daze.

"Ok Star Child, whatever you say." Hal joked.

"Are you kids alright?" Anthony asked after running over to their aid.

"You all had better get home. You've heard the stories about aliens snatching up people and doing all sorts of nasty experiments on them. Who knows if the next one is going to leave you there like that?" Anthony warned the three.

Now whether there was any credence to the stories of aliens abducting people or not the news media was actually starting to give these tales credence along with a veritable flood of new reports of persons who vanished and were not returned ever since the aliens had appeared in the skies. Anthony figured the specter of an abduction would be enough to scare the teens into behaving for the night.

"Yes sir. We'll be heading back now." Karen told him.

She then mounted her bike with Ben holding onto her back and followed Hal back to the Mason home. Though the experience had been how you would say "enlightening" in some enigmatic fashion for Ben, Hal hoped that was the closest he or his brother would ever come to an alien spacecraft. Despite all the hard times he gave Ben deep down he loved his brother dearly and would do anything to protect him.


	11. Chapter 1: Jiki Shousou Bunseki

Chapter X: Jiki Shousou Bunseki

24 Aug 1800 JST

Tokyo Japan

Dr. Kusanagi sat anxiously with the focus group as they reviewed the volumes upon volumes of new data, reports and theories. He had been pulled out of work early yesterday for this and they had remained in their dug in, undisclosed location ever since. They made each of their members sleep here, eat here and for all intents and purposes live here. The Naicho and this UN Special Commission on Extraterrestrial Affairs or whatever it was wouldn't risk having their valuable assets exposed to the brewing chaos outside or worse yet a potential alien attack.

Why was he here, none of this had anything to do with him. Until they brought him an alien brain to dissect his skills were of no value to them. He had more important things he could be doing right now. His kids had to be worried sick. He wondered how they fared through the previous day's events. Seeing the world get so much bigger had to have taken its toll on them. He knew Tomomi had her boyfriend coming to visit and undoubtedly he would be at the house with her doing God knows what. Dr. Kusanagi didn't want to think about that, he trusted Tomomi enough to make responsible decisions. Now Sayaka on the other hand, she was the one the Doctor would have to keep an eye on.

"We've seen a lot of their technology but what about the aliens themselves? Do we have any information on them?" one of the members of the think tank asked.

"As of now they haven't landed and there have been zero reports of any of the creatures outside the ships." replied the high ranking Air Force General.

"It's only been a day. Maybe they're a little shy." remarked another member of the panel.

"You would think that at least one of them would have been seen leaving their ships by now though. If we went to Mars on a manned mission we wouldn't just goof around out there in our spaceship, we'd come out, take some soil samples and if there was an intelligent species with a developed civilization on the planet we sure as hell would introduce ourselves to them." an aerospace engineer with JAXA, the Japanese space agency commented.

"Would we really?" asked another member of the board.

"Give it some time. They'll come out when they're ready. We need to make sure we as a species are ready to receive them." an intelligence official remarked.

"Perhaps it is because they can't breathe our atmosphere that we haven't seen "them" yet." a molecular biologist commented.

"Have you ever heard of a space suit?" the JAXA official chided him.

"If that's the case and they can't breathe our air then we should have nothing to fear from them. They're probably just scientists learning what they can. Why would they want to take over a planet they can't even breathe on." the General remarked, being surprisingly non-bellicose as per Kusanagi's expectations. Kusanagi had always had pacifistic tendencies and as a result he viewed the military and its members with a sense of suspicion. Though his bias was at least in one sense unjustified; soldiers weren't the ones who started wars, they were the ones who finished them. They were the guns the world's politicians pointed at each other. The doctor understood this yet still his bias remained.

"Until they start terraforming our atmosphere into a cloud of noxious gases." an esteemed climate scientist added.

"That is assuming they can and they want to do such a thing." the JAXA official replied. "Terraforming a planet isn't as easy or as quick as you would imagine." he continued.

"We're talking about a civilization way more advanced than our own, their science would look like magic compared to ours." a software engineer joined in.

"I'm not so far sold on the whole not breathing our air thing. Oxygen is a key component to any known organism supporting a large and well developed brain." the biologist rebutted them both.

Even the questions to which the Doctor could contribute to were taken by someone else. With his mind preoccupied with his family and his patients Dr. Kusanagi was always beaten to the punch. Once again, why was he here?

"That all depends on how alien our aliens are. You're assuming they're carbon-water based. On paper silicon-ammonia based lifeforms are just as viable or who knows what other combinations there might be out there. It's a big universe." a biochemist and university professor postulated.

"Temperature tolerance is another thing, especially if you're right and they are comprised of different primary elements than we are. They could step outside and boil or freeze to death. Also carrying around a portable refrigeration system isn't as economical as bringing along a self-contained atmosphere." a different engineer remarked.

"The London think tank believes it could be our germs that are keeping them confined to their ships. You know, like War or the Worlds." the General suggested.

"Not likely. Actually history has shown us that typically more advanced more interconnected societies would have a tendency towards greater disease resistance therefore posing a greater risk to the less advanced, more isolated society so it's more probable that their germs would be the ones wreaking havoc on our population, much like the Spaniards in the New World." a Nobel prize winning historian and diplomat stated.

"So they are hiding themselves away for our benefit?" asked the General.

"Maybe, we just don't know. We don't really know anything about them yet." one of the senior intelligence officials stated.

This debate went on into the night, occasionally stopping to address new developments and new information as it became available. When the group broke for a late dinner it was already past curfew and the Doctor once again wasn't going to be able to make it home. There were no special exceptions for the VIPs here to move freely at night, perhaps by design so that they could be kept here ready to go whenever the agency needed them. Kusanagi wasn't even allowed to make outbound calls so he couldn't send word to his family just to let them know he was ok.

He picked up the processed chicken patty and noodles from the chow line and sat down in a sterile silver and grey cafeteria to eat his dinner. It was later than he was accustomed to having dinner but it wasn't like he was going to be going to bed soon. A couple other panelists, Jiichiro Koga, the molecular biologist from before and Nobuo Okamura, an elite test pilot sat down across from him.

"They sure want us to jump to conclusions here don't they?" Koga asked the group.

"I know, they expect us to know all about aliens just because we're experts in a particular field down here on Earth. I mean come on, the footage they've shown us of these things looks awfully impressive but I'm not going to get a real feel on how these things handle if I can't see them in action out there." Okamura replied.

"Wonder what it's really like above ground? Ever get the feeling like it's not as bad as they are telling us? You know, like is this really happening or are we just guinea pigs in some kind of experiment?" Okamura hypothesized.

"Like the UN are the aliens?" Kusanagi asked.

"No, like the UN are a bunch of petty bureaucratic douchebags that want to test us to see how we would react to a first contact scenario." Okamura clarified.

"I honestly don't think those people are smart or well organized enough to be able to pull something like that off." remarked Kusanagi.

The other two men laughed softly. "You're probably right I suppose." said Okamura.

"I wish they would at least let us out there to see it for ourselves. I wasn't packed up to live in an underground bunker for six weeks when they brought me here." complained Okamura.

"Relax; it's only been two days if even." Koga chided him.

"I know what you mean though I haven't even had a chance to call my kids since whole thing went down. They're probably worried sick." Kusanagi remarked.

"It's times like this I'm glad I never had kids." commented Koga.

When he and the others returned after dinner there were new videos to analyze and new policy ideas to discuss. All the while Kusanagi drifted off and daydreamed, lost in thought, waiting for when there would be a break from this grueling madness. He had been called in here for the good of the world but when most of what was going on concerned engineering, military, political or philosophical matters he simply wasn't interested in. He was a smart man; very smart indeed, he could follow everything that was being said. That which he was unfamiliar with he could pick up quite quickly by listening, though these matters were best left to those on the technical side of things. Nothing biological had been encountered yet and there was really not enough to go on to get a behavioral analysis, which would only be peripherally related to his field of study. His mind kept drifting back to his family, worrying about them; Tomomi could probably take over as a substitute parent figure but with her boyfriend there she might be too distracted to really take that role seriously. Without meeting this guy face to face Dr. Kusanagi didn't know what kind of influence he would be over her. If he could have just got that one phone call it would have gone a long way in relieving his concerns. He tried to listen to what was being said and focus, since he had to be here anyways. He still didn't bother to chime in; there was always someone else to say what he was thinking; after all great minds often do think alike. They batted around suggestions on how to deal with the growing unrest in areas of the country and what to advise other nations to consider which were suffering with more intense disruptions than their own. Dealing with the human response was pretty straightforward but when it came to discussing the aliens themselves the panel's analysis was completely premature. It was amusing actually to see all these big brained geniuses try to guess how the alien ships worked, what the aliens and their tech were made of, what they looked like, what their culture would have been like and even what they ate. Even the contents of their droppings were mentioned at one point. All of these speculative guessed were just that, guesses and guesses that most likely would turn out to be utter nonsense when and if the truth were revealed.

The session concluded around a quarter to midnight. When it was over the Director of the Tokyo think tank briefly addressed the attendees.

"I know the past couple days have been difficult for you. A lot is going on up there in the outside world and we're just now starting to get a handle on it. I know a lot of you have close friends and family members on the outside and believe me I understand your concern. That is why, starting tomorrow morning if there are no new developments that would force us to act otherwise I will arrange for transport for each of you to go back home, check in with your loved ones and gather up whatever effects you may need for an extended stay here. We don't intend to keep you captive; if the situation remains stable you'll only be coming in here for a couple hours a day. Remember though that what we do is for your own protection. You're a valuable asset to the world and we don't want any harm to come to you. Now get some sleep and I'll have the transportation schedule ready by 9 AM." the Director informed them.

There he had his answer, tomorrow at last Dr. Kusanagi would get to see his kids and explain what had been going on inasmuch as his secrecy agreement would allow him to do. It would be a rough night for both him and his family but he prayed that this would be the last one like this.


End file.
